OLD  CROW 


ALICE  BROWN 


THE  PRISONER 

MY  LOVE  AND  I 

ONE  ACT  PLAYS 

THE  BLACK  DROP 

VANISHING  POINTS 

ROBIN   HOOD'S  BARN 

CHILDREN   or   EARTH 

HOMESPUN  AND  GOLD 

THE  FLYING  TEUTON 

THE  ROAD  TO  CASTALY 

LOUISE  IMOGEN  GUINEY 

BROMLEY  NEIGHBORHOOD 

THE   SECRET  OF  THE  CLAN 

THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 


OLD  CROW 


BY 

ALICE    BROWN 


got* 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1922 

All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 


COPYRIGHT,   1922, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  1922. 


OLD  CROW 


John  Raven  sat  in  the  library  of  his  shabby,  yet  dig 
nified  Boston  house,  waiting  for  Richard  Powell,  his 
nephew,  whom  he  had  summoned  for  an  intimate  talk. 
He  was  .sitting  by  the  fire  making  a  pretense  of  reading 
the  evening  paper,  but  really  he  was  prefiguring  the  com 
ing  interview,  dreading  it  a  good  deal,  and  chiefly  for  the 
reason  that  there  was  an  argument  to  be  presented,  and 
for  this  he  was  insufficiently  prepared,  and  must  be,  how 
ever  long  it  might  be  delayed.  When  he  telephoned  Dick 
to  come  he  was  at  last  armed  with  a  bold  conviction  of 
being  able  to  proffer  a  certain  case  to  him  (his  own 
case,  in  fact)  ;  but,  as  these  last  moments  went  on,  he 
weakened  sensibly  in  any  hope  he  might  have  had  that 
Dick  would  be  able  to  meet  him  from  any  illuminating 
viewpoint  of  his  own.  This  was  mid-winter,  two  years 
after  the  end  of  the  War,  where  Dick  and  his  uncle  had 
worked  in  the  Ambulance  Corps  to  the  limit  of  their 
capacities — Dick,  no  soldier,  because  of  what  seemed  to 
him  a  diabolic  eccentricity  of  imperfect  sight,  and 
Raven,  blocked  by  what  he  felt  to  be  the  negligible  dis 
ability  of  age.  John  Raven  had,  with  the  beginning  of 
the  War — which,  as  early  as  1914  he  had  decided  to  be 
his  war — made  up  his  mind  that  although  he  was  over 

1 

M174963 


;  ;-.QLD  CROW 


forty  and  of  a  business  training  with  inconsiderable 
excursions  into  literature,  he  wanted  nothing  so  much  as 
to  get  into  the  thick  of  it  and  the  rough  of  it,  so  far 
as  a  man  might  who  was  past  his  physical  best,  and 
now  he  was  back  again,  more  fit  than  when  he  went,  but 
at  this  present  moment  breathless  at  the  realization  that 
he  had  been  up  against  life  as  it  actually  is,  and  that 
he  found  it  a  brute  business  and  hated  it.  And  this  was 
not  so  much  the  horror  of  life  in  the  field  where,  however 
the  human  heart  cried  out  against  the  argument  of  dese 
crated  flesh,  the  spirit  could  call  mightily  upon  God, 
challenging  Him  to  grant  the  chrism  of  fulfilment  in 
return  for  this  wild  sacrifice  of  blood,  as  the  horror  of 
life  when  peace  was  exercising  her  rights  in  unbelievable 
ways.  This  he  was  going  to  explain  to  Dick,  if  he  could 
manage  it,  while  he  set  forth  also  his  need  of  retreating 
from  the  active  scene  and  leaving  some  of  his  formerly 
accepted  duties  on  Dick's  shoulders.  As  he  sat  there, 
gaunt,  long,  lean  man,  with  a  thin  brown  face  and  the 
eagle's  look,  a  fineness  of  aquiline  curve  that  made  him 
significant  in  a  dominant  type,  he  fitted  his  room  as  the 
room  fitted  him.  The  house  was  old;  nothing  had  been 
changed  in  it  since  the  year  when,  in  his  first-won  pros 
perity,  he  persuaded  his  mother  up  from  the  country  and 
let  her  furnish  it  with  her  shyly  modest  taste,  a  sense  of 
values  that  bade  her  keep  within  the  boundary  of  the 
atmosphere  she  brought  with  her  in  good  old  pieces  ten 
derly  used.  The  room  was  dim,  even  by  day,  from  these 
shadows  of  the  brooding  past,  and  the  dull  blue  draperies 
at  the  windows,  while  they  touched  it  to  a  more  inspirit 
ing  tone,  still  spoke  softly  of  the  repose  a  man  wanted 
when  he  escaped  from  the  outer  world  to  the  assuage 
ment  of  silence  and  his  books. 

To-night,  when   Raven  had  just   about   come   to   the 


OLD  CROW  3 

conclusion  that  he  could  not  possibly  enter  upon  certain 
things  with  Dick  because,  although  Dick  elected  to  be  a 
poet,  there  was  no  recognized  form  of  words  that  would 
make  him  understand,  and  he'd  better  telephone  him  to 
put  the  interview  off,  he  heard  his  voice  in  the  hall,  and, 
answering  it,  even  breaking  over  it,  like  bright  bubbles 
of  a  vocal  stream,  the  voice  of  the  girl  they  both  loved, 
in  ways  becoming  to  their  differences.  Raven  drew  a 
comfortable  breath.  The  intimate  conference  with  Dick 
would  have  to  be  deferred,  though  he  would  quite  as 
willingly  have  had  Nan  listen  to  it,  except  for  the  chance 
of  her  carrying  it  away  with  her,  in  that  sympathetic 
tenderness  of  hers,  to  burden  her  young  heart.  Nan 
would  have  made  quick  work  of  understanding.  She 
translated  you  as  you  went,  and  even  ran  ahead  of  you, 
in  her  haste,  just  as  she  sometimes  cut  in  on  your  speech, 
not  rudely  rebuking  you  for  being  too  slow,  but  in  her 
eagerness  to  assure  you  she  caught  at  the  first  toss. 
And  then  they  came  in,  she  full  of  anticipatory  delight 
at  seeing  Raven,  and  Dick  so  full  of  her  that  he  seemed 
not  to  know  whether  his  uncle  were  there  or  not,  except 
as  an  habitual  figure  in  the  furnishing  of  the  room. 

We  must  pause  a  dull  minute,  while  they  were  project 
ing  themselves  into  the  scene,  to  find  out  how  they  looked 
and  whether  they  also  fitted  the  room  and  Raven.  Nan, 
known  to  her  larger  world  as  Annette  Hamilton,  was  a 
tall,  slim,  yet  muscular  girl,  graced  with  as  many  physi 
cal  contradictions  as  you  are  likely  to  imagine.  While 
she  stood  for  an  instant  before,  puppy-like,  precipitat 
ing  herself  upon  Raven,  her  eyes  crinkled  up  like  Mary 
Seraskier's,  and  she  showed  a  line  of  milk-white  teeth. 
Altogether  nature — for  she  had  only  the  most  inconsid 
erable  help  from  art — had  done  her  exceedingly  well. 
She  had  the  hurling  impetuosities  of  the  puppy  when  she 


4  OLD  CROW 

found  herself  anywhere  near  persons  familiarly  dear  to 
her;  but,  unlike  the  puppy,  she  was  a  thing  of  grace. 
Her  hands  and  slim  arms  had  a  girl's  loveliest  contours, 
and  yet,  hidden  somewhere  under  that  satin  flesh  with  its 
rose  and  silver  lustre,  were  muscles  serviceably  strong. 
Her  eyes  were  grey  like  Athena's,  her  hair  fine  and  thick 
and  pale,  and  her  face  altogether  too  irregular  to  talk 
about  reasonably. 

How  is  it  possible  to  delineate  Dick,  even  with  all 
profuse  generosity  of  comment,  without  suggesting  that 
he  was  not  of  the  type  to  please  himself,  or  tagging  him 
with  a  priggishness  afar  from  him?  He  certainly  was 
not  the  sort  of  hero  his  dramatic  poems  described  with 
a  choppy  vigor  of  detail,  and  whom  there  is  no  doubt  he 
would  have  chosen  to  resemble.  But  nature  had  given 
him  a  slimness  and  an  actual  grace  he  found,  in  his  pri 
vate  self-scrutiny,  almost  girlish,  nor  could  he  wholly 
outwit  and  supplement  her  by  the  athletic  training  he 
never  intermitted.  Dick's  face,  too,  he  found  much 
against  him,  being  of  a  round  solidity  with  a  nose  too 
thick  and  a  mouth  a  thought  too  small.  How  could  such 
despite  have  happened  to  him,  he  asked  himself  in  mo 
ments  of  depression  when,  confronting  the  mirror,  he 
recognized  the  wrongs  inheritance  had  done  him.  But 
he  knew.  It  was  father's  people,  that  was  it.  They  were 
all  round  and  owlish,  and  they  thickened  up  in  middle 
life.  If  he  could  have  shared  Uncle  Jack's  lean  aqui- 
linity,  people  would  have  looked  at  him  twice,  as  they 
did  at  Uncle  Jack,  which  in  itself  would  be  a  bore, 
except  that  Nan  also  might  look.  Aware  of  these  things 
and  hiding  them  in  his  soul,  he  held  himself  tight,  shut 
his  mouth  close,  and  challenged  you  with  a  spectacled 
eye,  pinning  you  down  as  if  to  say:  "I  am  born  in  every 
particular  as  I  didn't  want  to  be,  but  take  notice  that 


OLD  CROW  5 

I'll  have  no  light  recognition  of  the  hateful  trick  they 
did  me.  I  am  in  training  for  a  husky  fellow.  I  haven't 
let  up  on  myself  one  instant  since  I  found  out  how 
horrible  it  was  to  be  a  good  deal  more  of  a  fellow  than 
I  shall  ever  look.  I  never  shall  let  up.  And  don't  you 
let  me  catch  you  letting  up  either,  in  the  way  you  treat 
me." 

Nan,  to  go  back  to  the  minute  of  their  entrance,  made 
a  swift  assault  upon  Raven.  In  the  old  days  when  he 
was  a  youngish  man  and  she  a  little  girl,  a  growing 
thing,  elongating  like  Alice,  she  used  to  hurl  herself  into 
his  arms  and  insist  on  staying  there.  Her  aunt,  Miss 
Anne  Hamilton,  who  had  brought  her  up  from  babyhood, 
was  always  detaching  her  from  Raven;  but  Nan  clung 
as  persistently.  Raven  would  look  at  Miss  Anne,  over 
the  girl's  rumpled  silk  poll,  with  whimsically  imploring 
eyes.  Why  couldn't  Nan  be  allowed  to  break  upon  him 
like  a  salty,  fragrant  wave  of  the  sea,  he  seemed  to  ask 
Miss  Anne,  bringing  all  sorts  of  floating  richness,  the 
outcrop  of  her  fancies  and  affections?  Aunt  Anne  would 
return  the  glance  with  her  sweet,  immovable  deprecation 
and  go  on  detaching,  while  Nan,  with  an  equal  obstinacy 
— though  hers  was  protesting,  vocable,  sometimes  shrill 
to  the  point  of  anguish — stuck  to  her  self-assumed  rights. 
It  was  Raven  himself  who  involuntarily  stepped  over  to 
Aunt  Anne's  side  and  finished  the  detaching  process. 
When  Nan  came  back  after  her  first  term  at  the  semi 
nary  Aunt  Anne  preferred  to  college,  and  was  running 
to  him  with  her  challenge  of  welcome,  he  was  taken  aback 
by  the  nymph-like  grace  and  beauty  of  her,  the  poise  of 
the  small  head  with  its  braided  crown — the  girls  at  the 
seminary  told  her  she  might  have  been  a  Victorian  by  the 
way  she  wore  her  hair — and  he  instinctively  caught  her 
arms,  about  to  enwreath  his  neck,  held  her  still  and 


6  OLD  CROW 

looked  at  her.  She  could  not  know  what  vision,  over 
whelming  in  its  suddenness,  she  brought  before  him,  of 
childhood  gone  and  maidenhood  come  and  the  sacredness 
of  this  new  state.  Aunt  Anne  knew  and  frowned  a  little 
to  herself,  from  her  silent,  savage  jealousy,  realizing, 
though  she  would  never,  in  her  proud  integrity,  allow  her 
self  to  think  it,  that  this  hushed  veneration  of  Raven's 
was  worse  than  the  old  tumultuous  intercourse.  What 
Raven  really  might  have  said  was : 

"Darling,  you're  a  woman  and  you're  a  beauty.  You 
don't  know  it,  but  you  don't  want  to  hug  a  jaded  old 
reveler  like  me." 

He  was  not,  by  any  means,  a  reveler.  His  life  had 
been  little  more  than  a  series  of  walks  to  business.  But 
those  were  the  words  that  came  to  him,  catching  her 
adorable  freshness  of  body  and  mind,  and  determining  to 
keep  it  untouched  by  dusty  old  pantaloons  such  as  he 
saw  himself.  Nan  stood  for  a  minute  paling  out  under 
his  eyes,  and  then  drew  away  from  him  and  left  the 
room,  her  braid-crowned  head  high.  She  had  to  meet 
him  at  dinner,  and  he  knew  she  had  cried  and  Aunt  Anne 
knew  it  and  was  hard  on  her  over  the  little  things  she 
could  reprove  her  for,  in  a  silky,  affectionate  way,  and 
Raven's  heart  swelled  until  he  thought  they  both  must 
know  its  congestion,  and  tried  to  put  round  it  another 
bond  of  quiet,  kind  affection.  Since  that  time,  Nan  had 
never  kissed  him ;  but  now,  this  two  months  since  the 
death  of  Aunt  Anne,  she  had  adopted  a  greeting  of  her 
own.  She  put  her  hands  on  his  arm  and  bent  her  fore 
head  for  a  minute  to  his  shoulder.  The  first  time  she 
did  it,  he  wanted  to  kiss  the  bright  hair,  but  forbade 
himself,  and  the  second  time  he  said,  he  was  so  curious 
over  it: 

"A  rite?" 


OLD  CROW  7 

She  was  ready  with  her  answer.  He  suspected  she 
must  have  thought  it  out  ingeniously  beforehand. 

"It's  because  I'm  sorry  for  you." 

"Sorry?"  he  repeated. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "about  Aunt  Anne." 

Then  he  realized  she  was  sorry  because  Aunt  Anne 
was  dead,  and  he  was  more  and  more  conscious  of  the 
unbecoming  lightness  and  freedom  where  he  found  him 
self  at  the  death  of  Aunt  Anne.  He  had  not  dared 
acknowledge  it  to  himself.  He  couldn't,  for  shame.  But 
whereas,  in  the  past  years,  when  he  ventured  to  formu 
late  his 'own  life  a  little  and  see  what  it  had  done  to  him 
and  how  he  could  go  on  meeting  it,  he  had  had  a  sense 
of  harassment  and  of  being  driven  too  hard,  after  Aunt 
Anne's  death  he  began  to  recognize  the  stillness  of 
the  space  she  had  left  behind.  Now  to-day,  before  Nan 
had  accomplished  the  little  rite  of  the  bowed  head  on  his 
shoulder,  something  queer  about  it  seemed  to  strike  Dick, 
and  he  said  to  her: 

"He's  your  uncle,  too,  you  know." 

Raven  took  this  with  composure,  as  signifying  the 
length  as  well  as  the  depth  of  his  adoptive  relation 
toward  her,  but  Nan  met  it  with  resentment.  She  left 
him  and  turned  upon  Dick. 

"Now  what,"  she  said,  "do  you  mean  by  that?" 

"Why,  Nan,"  said  the  poor  youth,  keeping  a  stiff 
upper  lip,  because  he  recognized  the  signs  of  an  ap 
proaching  squabble,  "I've  told  him.  I'll  tell  him  again. 
Jack,  we're  engaged." 

"We're  nothing  of  the  sort,"  said  Nan,  either  in  pure 
surprise  or  an  excellent  simulation  of  it. 

Dick  met  this  doggedly. 

"We  are,  too,"  he  said.     "You  promised  me." 

"Maybe  I  did,"  Nan  yielded.     "But  it  was  that  awful 


8  OLD  CROW 

night  when  you  were  going  out.  We  won't  talk  about 
that.  I'd  have  promised  you  anything  then.  I'd  have 
promised  anybody,  just  as  I'd  have  given  'em  coffee  or  a 
smoke.  But  when  we  got  back  and  you  expected  to 
begin  from  there,  didn't  I  tell  you  to  shut  up?  I've  told 
you  to  ever  since.  And  I  believe,"  she  added,  with  an 
acumen  that  struck  him  in  the  center,  "you're  only  drag 
ging  it  out  now  to  catch  me — before  him." 

"I  did  shut  up,"  said  Dick,  holding  himself  straight 
and  using  his  mouth  tautly,  "because  your  aunt  was  sick 
and  then  because  she  was  worse.  But  you  needn't  think 
I've  shut  up  for  good.  Besides,  it's  only  Jack  I  told. 
He's  nobody." 

"No,"  said  Raven  mildly,  "I'm  nobody.  Only  I  wish 
you  wouldn't  come  here  to  fight.  Why  can't  you  get  it 
over  on  the  steps,  and  then  act  like  Christians  after  you 
come  in?" 

Nan  laughed.  She  was  instantly  and  most  obligingly 
sweet,  as  if  wholly  bent  on  pleasing  him.  But  Richard 
glowered.  It  was  quite  like  her,  he  thought,  to  sprinkle 
herself  over  with  that  May  morning  look  of  hers  when 
she  knew  she  had  the  horrible  advantage  not  only  of 
being  adorable  in  herself,  but  a  female  to  boot,  within 
all  the  sanctities  that  still  do  hedge  the  sex,  however  it 
behaves. 

"You  see,"  said  Nan  maternally,  "in  France  we  were 
living  at  high  pressure.  Now  everything's  different.  We 
mustn't  be  silly.  Run  away,  Dick,  just  as  I  told  you, 
and  leave  me  to  talk  to  Rookie." 

This  was  her  name  for  Raven,  saved  over  from  childish 
days. 

"All  right  then,"  said  Dick.  "But  I  sha'n't  wait  for 
you.  I  shall  go  to  Cambridge." 

It   was    such   an   anticlimax   of   a   threat,   delivered   in 


OLD  CROW  9 

so  determined  a  voice,  that  he  expected  them  to  laugh, 
in  a  silly  way  they  had  of  seeing  the  merest  foolishness 
always  from  the  same  angle.  But,  as  he  turned  to  go, 
it  was  with  the  chill  certainty  that  they  had  forgotten 
all  about  him.  Nan  had  settled  herself  by  the  fire  and 
his  uncle  was  bringing  her  a  footstool,  an  elderly  atten 
tion,  Dick  floutingly  thought,  very  well  suited  to  Aunt 
Anne,  but  pure  silliness  for  a  girl  who  flung  herself  about 
all  over  the  place.  At  any  rate,  he  wasn't  wanted,  and 
he  did  go  to  Cambridge  and  hunted  up  some  of  the 
fellowrs  likely  to  talk  sense;  but  no  sooner  had  he  settled 
within  their  circle  of  geniality  than  he  found  himself 
glooming  over  Nan  and  tempted  to  go  back  and  break 
in  on  that  mysterious  conclave. 

It  was  mysterious.  Nan  herself  had  made  it  so.  Her 
face,  on  Dick's  going,  had  fallen  into  a  grave  repose,  and 
she  turned  at  once  to  Raven,  saying: 

"You  see,  Dick  ran  in  on  the  way  over  here,  and 
when  he  told  me  you'd  sent  for  him,  I  said  I'd  come 
along,  because  I'd  got  to  see  you  instead.  Was  that 
cheeky?  I  really  have  got  to.  Couldn't  the  other  thing 
wait?" 

"Perfectly  well,"  said  Raven,  with  a  ready  cheerfulness 
he  was  aware  she  could  not  understand.  How  should 
she?  He  had  not  been  in  the  habit  of  troubling  Dick, 
or  indeed  any  one,  with  his  vaporings.  He  had  lived, 
of  late  years,  as  a  sedate,  middle-aged  gentleman  should, 
with  no  implication  of  finding  the  world  any  less  roseate 
than  his  hopes  had  promised.  As  to  Dick,  the  very 
sight  of  him  had  shown  him  beyond  a  doubt  how  little 
disposed  he  was  to  take  the  lad  into  that  area  of  tumult 
uous  discontent  which  was  now  his  mind.  "Fire  away," 
he  bade  her.  "You  in  trouble,  dear?  You  want  patri 
archal  advice?" 


10  OLD  CROW 

Nan  might  not  have  heard.  She  was  looking,  with  a 
frowning  gravity,  into  the  fire.  How  should  she  begin? 
He  saw  the  question  beating  about  in  her  mind  and  hoped 
he  could  give  her  a  lead.  But  she  found  the  way  for 
herself.  She  turned  to  him  with  a  sudden  lovely  smile. 

"Aunt  Anne,"  she  said,  "has  done  something  beau 
tiful." 

He  felt  his  heart  shrinking  within  him  as  he  combated 
the  ungracious  feeling  which,  it  seemed,  would  not  down: 
that  he  was  never  to  be  done  with  Aunt  Anne's  deeds, 
so  often  demanding,  as  they  did,  a  reciprocal  action 
from  him.  What  he  wanted,  he  realized  grimly,  was  to 
have  his  cake  and  eat  it,  if  he  might  use  so  homespun 
a  simile  for  a  woman  who  had  persistently  lived  for  him 
and  in  him  and  then  had  made  clear  spaces  about  him 
by  going  away  in  the  dignity  of  death.  He  wanted  to 
breathe  in  the  space  she  had  left,  and  he  also  wanted 
to  be  spared  the  indecency  of  recognizing  his  relief. 
But  Nan,  studying  the  fire  persistently,  to  allow  his  eyes 
all  possible  liberty  of  searching  her  face  while  she  gen 
erously  avoided  his,  was  going  on  in  what  was  evidently 
a  preconceived  task  of  breaking  something  to  him. 

"Yes,  she's  done  something  beautiful,  and  done  it  for 
you." 

Raven's  heart  had  shrunk  so  now  that  he  wondered  it 
could  weigh  so  heavily.  How  could  a  woman,  his 
rebellious  intelligence  asked  him,  manage  to  pursue  a 
man  with  her  benefits  even  from  the  grave?  All  his 
grown-up  life  he  had  fought  them,  but  still  they  hung 
about  him  him  like  shackles.  When  he  tore  them  off  from 
one  member — always  wounding  himself  only,  and  scrupu 
lously  sure  of  never,  except  by  the  inevitability  of  his 
refusals,  hurting  her — they  fastened  on  him  somewhere 
else.  When  he  was  under  twenty — for  he  was  fourteen 


OLD  CROW  11 

years  younger  than  she — had  come  the  question  of  her 
endowing  him  for  the  period  of  his  apprenticeship  to 
literature,  that  he  might  write  with  a  free  mind.  He 
had,  tempting  as  that  was  and  safe  as  it  seemed  to  his 
arrogant  youth,  found  the  decency  and  prudence  to 
refuse.  He  wondered  now  how  he  had  been  spared,  saved 
really  by  the  prophetic  gods  from  taking  that  guarantee, 
though  he  was  then  so  sure  of  his  ability  to  justify  the 
risk  and  pay  it  all  back.  Perhaps  his  mother  had  helped 
him.  She  was  a  woman  of  rare  sanity,  and  though  he 
could  not  remember  her  uttering  a  dissuading  word,  he 
was  sure,  in  the  light  of  his  own  middle-aged  vision, 
that  she  must  have  been  throwing  the  weight  of  her 
clear-mindedness  into  the  scale. 

Then  there  was  the  question  of  a  college  course  and 
of  European  travel:  those  were  among  the  colossal  gifts 
Anne  Hamilton  had  sought  to  lavish  on  him.  But  again 
he  had  saved  himself,  accepting  one  thing  only,  a  benefit 
that  must  have  hurt  her  heart  like  a  stone,  she  was  so 
bent  on  his  beautiful,  bright  aptitude  at  writing  taking 
its  place  as  soon  as  possible,  and  with  no  dimming  from 
a  prosaic  drudgery,  in  the  world  as  she  knew  it:  the 
Boston  world,  the  New  England  world,  the  court  of 
judgment  that  sits  across  the  Atlantic.  This  benefit  he 
asked  for  and  received,  from  her  father:  a  clerk's  place 
in  the  mills — Hamilton  was  a  wool  magnate — and  a 
chance  to  earn  steady  money  for  himself  and  his  mother, 
who  was  every  year,  in  spite  of  her  stout  heart,  slipping 
into  the  weakness  of  the  chronic  invalid.  Raven  wrote 
his  books  at  the  fag  end  of  days  given  to  his  dull  indus- 
trv,  and  he  succeeded  in  calling  attention  to  himself  as 
a  classical  scholar,  and  then,  as  he  impatiently  hit  out 
with  what  he  called  pot-boilers  in  dialect,  he  got  a  popu 
lar  hearing  and  more  money  as  well.  All  the  time  he 


12  OLD  CROW 

was  advancing  in  the  mills,  and,  as  he  advanced,  he  never 
failed  to  see  before  him  the  flutter  of  Anne's  discreet 
draperies  or  hear  the  click  of  her  determined  heel.  She 
never  appeared  in  the  business  at  all,  but  he  was  per 
fectly  sure  there  wasn't  a  preferment  offered  him  by  her 
father  for  which  he  wasn't  indebted  to  her  manipulation 
of  Hamilton  in  long,  skillful  hours  beforehand.  Hamil 
ton  had  no  slightest  idea  he  was  being  influenced,  but, 
as  the  years  went  on,  he  grew  in  appreciation  of  young 
Raven's  business  abilities  to  such  a  degree  that  John, 
reading  his  mind  like  a  familiar  tongue,  wondered  whether 
after  all  it  was  true,  and  he  hadn't  a  genius  for  the 
affairs  of  wool.  Was  he  doing  the  thing  that  seemed 
so  dull  to  him  with  such  mechanical  and  yet  consum 
mate  cleverness  that  he  was  worth  all  this  unripe  ad 
vancement,  or  was  it  indeed  Anne's  white  hand  that  was 
turning  the  wheel  of  power,  her  wand  that  was  keeping 
the  augmented  vision  of  him  ever  before  her  father's 
credulous  eyes?  But  he  could  not  retard  the  wheels  of 
his  progress  without  making  a  fool  of  himself,  and  by 
the  'time  his  sister  had  prosperously  married  and  his 
mother  had  died,  he  was  a  partner  in  the  business,  and 
then  Hamilton  also  died  and  Raven  was  asking  Dick, 
hoping  all  the  time  he  would  refuse,  if  he  wanted  to 
come  in.  Dick  did  refuse,  with  an  instant  hearty  deci 
sion  for  which  his  uncle  inwardly  blessed  him.  Raven 
had  got  so  restive  by  this  time  over  the  position  he  had 
himself  won  through  Anne's  generalship  that  he  felt  the 
curse  was  going  down  through  the  family,  and  that  Dick, 
if  he  should  come  in,  would  wake  up  at  forty-odd  and 
find  himself  under  the  too  heavy  shade  of  the  Hamilton 
benevolence. 

"Not    on    your   life,"    said    Dick,    when   he    was    half 
heartedly  offered  the  chance  of  battening  on  wool,  "not 


OLD  CROW  13 

while  Mum's  got  the  dough.  There's  only  one  of  me, 
and  she's  bound  to  keep  me  going." 

"You  couldn't  marry  on  it,"  said  Raven. 

For  that  also  Dick  was  cheerfully  prepared. 

"By  the  time  Nan's  ready,"  he  said,  having-  at  that 
point  asked  her  intermittently  for  several  years,  "I  shall 
be  getting  barrelfuls  out  of  my  plays." 

"  'If,'  "  quoted  Raven,  "  'Medina  Sidonia  had  waited 
for  the  skin  of  the  bear  that  was  not  yet  killed,  he  might 
have  catched  a  great  cold.'  ' 

"That's  all  right,"  said  Dick.  "You  needn't  worry, 
not  till  it  begins  to  worry  me.  The  only  thing  that  gets 
me  is  not  pinning  Nan  down." 

"Yes,"  said   Raven,  "she's   a   difficult  person  to   pin." 

And  saying  it,  he  had  a  vision  of  a  bright  butterfly 
with  "dye-dusty  wings"  in  stiff,  glass-covered  brittleness. 
He  wondered  if  marrying  might  pin  Nan  down  like  that. 

Another  thought  troubled  him  a  little:  whether  Dick 
had  built  even  obscurely  in  his  own  mind  on  the  money 
Nan  would  have  from  Aunt  Anne,  and  the  more  modest 
sum  she  had  now  from  her  dead  father  and  mother.  He 
concluded  not.  He  hadn't  got  to  worry  about  that. 
Dick  had  lived  in  the  atmosphere  of  money  and  he  took 
its  permanence  for  granted. 

But  we  are  keeping  Nan  looking  at  the  fire  and  trying 
to  get  her  news  out  adequately,  waiting  a  long  time  for 
these  explanatory  excursions  into  past  history.  Raven 
also  was  waiting,  a  good  deal  excited  and  conscious  of 
his  apprehensive  heart.  And  when  she  spoke,  in  a  studied 
quietude,  he  found  the  words  were  the  very  last  he 
expected  to  hear: 

"I  wanted  to  be  the  one  to  tell  you.  We've  found  her 
will." 


II 


They  sat  there  silent  for  several  minutes.  Raven  was 
keeping  desperate  clutch  on  the  inner  self  lashed  by 
his  hurrying  heart,  and  telling  it  there  was  no  danger 
of  his  saying  any  of  the  things  it  was  hounding  him  on 
to  say.  He  wanted  to  break  out  with  an  untempered 
violence : 

"Of  course  you've  found  it.  And  of  course  she's  left 
a  lot  of  it  to  me." 

He  did  not  really  believe  that:  only  it  so  linked  up 
with  the  chain  of  her  unceasing  benevolences  toward  him 
that  it  seemed  the  only  thing  to  complete  them  adequately. 
And  Nan,  as  if  his  premonition  had  prompted  her,  too, 
was  saying,  after  the  minute  she  had  left  him  to  get  his 
pace  even  with  hers,  as  if  to  assure  him  that,  although  she 
knew  so  much  more  than  he,  she  wouldn't  hurry  ahead: 

"Rookie,  dear,  she's  left  it  all  to  you." 

Raven  felt  himself  tighten  up,  every  nerve  and  sinew 
of  him,  to  do  something  before  it  should  be  too  late. 
He  bent  f orward  to  her  and  said,  a  sharp  query : 

"Who  found  it?" 

"Why,"  said  Nan,  smiling  as  if  she  couldn't  ask  any 
thing  better,  "I  found  it,  in  a  perfectly  innocent  looking 
envelope  with  some  old  deeds  and  mortgages." 

"You  haven't  got  it  here,  have  you?"  he  pelted  on. 
"You  didn't  bring  it  with  you?" 

14 


OLD  CROW  15 

His  eyes  interrogated  her  with  his  voice,  and  she  shook 
her  head,  wondering  at  him. 

"Nothing  to  you?"  he  asked  sharply.  "I'm  the  sole 
legatee?" 

"Oh,  I  have  the  house,  of  course,"  said  Nan,  "the  one 
here  and  the  place  at  Wake  Hill.  She  had  those  only 
for  her  lifetime,  you  know.  Yes,  you're  the  sole  legatee." 

"You  haven't  told  anybody,  have  you?"  he  asked,  in 
a  despairing  haste,  as  if  he  were  seeking  about  for  ways 
to  suppress  the  document. 

She  broke  into  an  amused  giggle,  the  note  he  some 
times  fancied  she  kept  for  him  alone. 

"Why,  yes,"  she  said,  "of  course  I  have.  I  telephoned 
Mr.  Whitney,  and  he  was  in  a  great  state  over  it.  He 
came  round,  and  I  gave  it  to  him." 

"A  lawyer!"  said  Raven,  in  disgust.  "A  damned  accu 
rate,  precedent-preaching  lawyer!  Well,  the  fat's  in  the 
fire  now.  What  did  you  have  to  be  so  confounded  pre 
vious  for?" 

Nan  was  smiling  at  him  as  if  she  found  herself  wiser 
than  he. 

"You  didn't  think  you  could  tear  it  up,  did  you, 
Rookie?"  she  inquired.  "You  can't,  you  know,  except 
in  stories." 

"I  don't  know  what  I  thought,"  he  said.  "Only  I  wish 
it  hadn't  been  done,  that's  all.  It's  a" — he  ended  blankly 
— "a  mistake." 

She  was  looking  at  him  now  in  a  warm,  sweet  way, 
to  tell  him  she  understood  and  thanked  him. 

"You're  afraid  I  sha'n't  have  enough,"  she  said.  "I 
shall.  I'd  ever  so  much  rather  you  had  it,  Rookie." 

"It  isn't  a  question,"  said  Raven  curtly,  in  his  dis 
affection,  "of  how  much  you're  worth.  It's  simply  yours, 
that's  all,  and  you've  got  to  have  it.  Well,  I  can  refuse 


16  OLD  CROW 

it,  I  suppose.  Only  that's  so  boorish.  It  drags  every 
body  out  into  the  open.  What  made  her!  Oh,  what 
made  her!" 

"I  think  it's  nice,"  said  Nan  comfortably.  "It  seems 
to  make  everything  so  right.  As  to  other  people — why, 
it's  telling  them,  don't  you  know,  you  really  were  the  one 
she  cared  most  about,  though  she  couldn't  care  quite  in 
the  way  you  wanted  her  to." 

He  sat  staring  at  her.  What  did  she  mean?  What 
had  she  made  up,  in  her  adequate  mind,  about  his  relation 
to  Aunt  Anne?  She  couldn't  know  how  he  had  fought 
off  the  yearly  increasing  benefits  Anne  had  showered  him 
with,  unless  indeed  Anne  had  told  her.  And  it  wasn't 
like  her.  Anne  was  dignity  itself.  She  kept  her  own 
counsel.  She  took  her  stately  course  without  the  least 
recognition  that  there  were  peculiarities  in  the  pace  she 
kept  or  the  road  she  chose.  She  had  the  unconscious 
arrogance  of  her  class,  a  class  perhaps,  except  as  surviv 
ing  in  individuals,  almost  extinct.  She  never  accounted 
for  herself,  because  it  could  not  have  forced  its  way  into 
her  mind,  from  birth  to  death,  that  there  was  anything 
in  her  conduct  save  the  inevitable  best,  as  ordered  as  the 
stars.  So,  Raven  knew,  she  had  probably  never  talked 
over  his  nebulous  relation  with  her  to  Nan ;  but  he  was 
suddenly  alive  with  curiosity  to  know.  He  couldn't  coax 
Nan  into  betraying  that  confidence,  but  he  was  never 
theless  set  on  getting  at  it  somehow.  He  wondered  if  it 
might  be  decent  to  do  it  by  direct  attack. 

"Nan,"  said  he,  "just  what  was  my  relation  to  your 
Aunt  Anne?  What  do  you  assume  it  to  have  been?" 

She  looked  at  him  as  if  in  reproach,  a  hurt  pride  flush 
ing  her  cheek  and  giving  a  sort  of  wounded  appeal  to  her 
glance. 

"Why,"   she   stumbled,   "I  know.      Of  course  I   know. 


OLD  CROW  17 

Everybody  did  that  heard  how  long  you'd  been  devoted 
to  her."  * 

This  gave  him  so  sharp  a  pang  that  it  might  almost 
have  seemed  she  had  been  told  off  to  avenge  some  of  Aunt 
Anne's  wrongs  of  omission  suffered  at  his  hands.  He  had 
never  been  devoted  to  her,  even  with  his  decent  show  of 
deference  in  return  for  the  benefits  he  had  to  reject.  And 
now  Nan  was  accusing  him  of  having  kept  up  the  rela 
tion  he  had  been  all  his  life  repudiating,  and  since  Aunt 
Anne  was  gone  (in  the  pathetic  immunity  that  shuts 
the  lips  of  the  living  as  it  does  those  of  the  dead),  he 
could  not  repudiate  it  any  more.  Nan  was  looking  at 
him  now  in  her  clear-eyed  gravity,  but  still  with  that 
unconscious  implication  of  there  being  something  in  it 
all  to  hurt  her  personally.  The  words  came  as  if  in 
spite  of  her,  so  impetuously  that  she  might  easily  not 
have  seen  how  significant  they  were: 

"There's  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of  in  not  getting  the 
woman  you  want,  especially  with  that  reason.  She  adored 
you,  Rookie.  I  know  she  did.  And  it  was  pretty  heroic 
in  her  to  keep  her  mind  fixed  on  all  those  years  between 
you.  I  wouldn't,  I  can  tell  you.  Do  you  s'pose  I'd  let 
a  matter  of  fourteen  years  keep  me  from  the  only  man? 
No,  sir.  Not  me." 

They  sat  gazing  at  each  other,  she  as  self-willed  as 
her  words  and  he  abjectly  afraid  of  her  finding  out.  Why  ? 
He  could  not  have  told.  But  it  did  seem  as  if  he  must 
protect  Anne,  in  the  shadows  where  she  lived  now,  from 
the  flashing  directness  of  this  terrible  young  glance.  It 
was  all  he  could  do  for  her.  It  was  bad  enough  to  have 
Nan  build  up  a  beautiful  dream  house  of  eternal  love 
and  renunciation.  It  was  infinitely  worse  to  be  the  cause 
of  her  demolishing  it.  And  as  his  eyes,  in  sheer  terror 
of  leaving  her  to  reflect  any  more  astutely  and  produc- 


18  OLD  CROW 

lively  on  this,  held  hers,  and  hers  answered  back,  suddenly 
he  saw  a  new  knowledge  dawn  in  their  clear  depths.  She 
had  somehow  read  him,  underneath  his  evasions.  She 
knew.  And  before  she  could  turn  that  involuntary  dis 
covery  of  hers  over  in  her  mind  and  blur  it  with  some 
of  the  discretions  he  was  trying  to  maintain,  she  burst 
out,  in  the  extremity  of  her  wonder : 

"Good  heavens !  I  don't  believe  it  was  so  at  all.  You 
weren't  in  love  with  her.  She  was  with  you,  and  that  was 

the  only  way  she "  Here  she  saw  the  morass  her  crude 

candor  was  leading  them  both  into,  and  stopped,  but  not 
soon  enough  for  him  to  miss  the  look  of  eager  relief  sprung 
into  her  eyes.  He  turned  from  her  and  spoke  roughly : 

"We  don't  know  what  we're  talking  about.  Going  into 
things  now — why,  it's  the  merest  folly.  Haven't  we 
enough  to  worry  over  in  the  matter  of  the  will?  That's 
the  thing  we've  got  to  meet  next." 

She  had  now,  he  saw,  the  consciously  sweet  and  warm 
ing  smile  she  had  for  him  when  she  wanted  to  coax  him 
into  doing  something  or  ignoring  something  she  had  done. 

"I'm  in  hopes,"  she  said,  "you  may  feel  differently 
after  you've  read  her  letter." 

"Her  letter?"  he  repeated,  as  if  that  were  a  superadded 
shock.  "What  letter?" 

"It  was  in  the  envelope,"  said  Nan  soothingly,  "with 
the  will." 

"Who's  it  to?" 

He  was  a  writer  of  English,  but  his  extremity  was  such 
that  only  the  briefest  slovenliness  would  serve. 

"To  you,"  she  said,  unclasping  her  little  bag  and  bring 
ing  it  out,  the  familiar  superscription  uppermost  and  the 
very  size  and  texture  of  the  envelope  so  reminiscent  of 
Anne's  unchanging  habits  that  he  felt  again  the  pressure 
of  her  fine  indomitable  hand  on  his. 


OLD  CROW  19 

"Have  you,"  he  asked  bleakly,  "shown  that  to  Whit 
ney?" 

"Why,  no,"  said  she,  in  a  clear-eyed  surprise.  "Of 
course  not.  It's  addressed  to  you." 

She  held  it  out  to  him  and,  after  a  perceptible  pause, 
he  took  it  from  her  and  sat  holding  it,  looking  over  it 
into  the  fire,  as  if  he  saw  his  fate  there,  or  as  if  he  should 
determine  it  for  himself  by  tossing  the  letter  in,  to  be 
devoured.  Then  he  became  aware  that  Nan  was  gather 
ing  herself  up  to  go.  It  was  rather  a  mental  intimation 
than  anything  tangible.  She  was  tight  furled,  like  all 
the  women  of  that  moment  of  fashion,  and  had  no  flying 
draperies  to  collect.  But  he  felt  her  flitting  and  knew 
at  the  same  instant  that  he  could  not  lose  her,  since, 
determined  as  he  was  to  bar  her  out  of  the  inner  re 
cesses  of  his  unfurnished  mental  prison,  where  he  and 
the  memory  of  Aunt  Anne  dwelt  so  miserably  together, 
it  was  still  a  comfort  to  keep  her  human  presence  within 
call. 

"Don't  go,"  he  implored  her,  and  she,  surprised,  settled 
back,  saying: 

"No,  of  course  not,  if  you  don't  want  me  to.  I  thought 
you'd  like  to  read  it  straight  off.  Wouldn't  it  be  easier 
to  read  it  alone?" 

"I  don't  know  whether  I  can  ever  read  it,"  said  Raven, 
and  then,  seeing  what  a  great  booby  he  must  sound,  he 
ended  savagely :  "I'll  read  it  now." 

Nan  took  a  paper-knife  from  the  table  and  offered  it 
to  him.  Evidently  she  felt  an  un formulated  tenderness 
there,  a  guess  that  if  he  tore  it  open  it  would  seem  as  if 
he  were  somehow  tearing  at  Aunt  Anne's  vanished  and 
helpless  delicacies.  Then,  as  he  did  not  accept  the  knife, 
or,  indeed,  seem  to  see  it,  she  took  the  letter  from  his 
hand,  ran  the  blade  noiselessly  under  the  flap,  withdrew 


%0  OLD  CROW 

the  folded  sheets,  and  gave  them  to  him.  Raven,  with  a 
little  shake  of  the  head,  as  if  he  were  reminding  himself 
not  to  be  a  fool,  opened  the  letter,  fixed  his  attention  on 
it  and,  without  looking  up,  hurried  through  the  closely 
written  pages.  Nan  sat  as  still  a»  an  image  of  silence, 
and  when  he  had  done  and  she  heard  him  folding  the 
sheets  and  putting  them  back  into  the  envelope,  she  did 
not  look  up. 

"Well,"  said  he,  his  voice  so  harsh  and  dry  that  now 
she  did  glance  at  him  in  a  quick  inquiry,  "it's  as  bad  as 
it  can  be.  No,  it  couldn't  very  well  be  worse." 

Harrying  thoughts  raced  through  her  mind.  Had  Aunt 
Anne  reproached  him  for  any  friendliness  unreturned,  any 
old  hurt  time  had  never  healed?  No,  Aunt  Anne  was  too 
effectually  armored  by  an  exquisite  propriety.  She  would 
have  been  too  proud  to  make  any  egotistical  demand  for 
herself  during  life.  Assuredly  she  could  not  have  done 
it  after  death.  Raven  may  have  guessed  what  she  was 
thinking. 

"No,"  he  said,  in  the  same  tone  of  dry  distaste.  All 
at  once  it  seemed  he  could  be  definitely  allowed  to  treat 
himself  to  a  little  wholesome  rebuttal  of  Anne  and  her 
ways.  "It's  nothing  you  could  possibly  imagine.  She 
leaves  the  money  to  me  to  be  used  for  a  certain  purpose. 
She  doesn't  leave  it  to  any  association  of  the  people  that 
think  as  she  does,  because  she  doesn't  absolutely  trust 
them  never  to  divert  it  into  some  channel  she  wouldn't 
approve.  She  leaves  it  to  me  to  administer  because  I 
know  precisely  what  she  means  and  I'd  feel  bound  to  do 
it  in  her  way  and  no  other." 

"But  what  is  the  purpose?"  Nan  asked  him.  She  was 
thoroughly  surprised  and  very  curious.  "So  it's  for  a 
cause.  Aren't  you  glad,  Rookie?  A  minute  ago  you 
didn't  want  it.  What  is  the  cause?" 


OLD  CROW  21 

"The  cause,"  said  Raven,  with  infinite  distaste,  as  if 
it  galled  him  even  to  say  it,  "is  the  cause  of  Peace." 

"Good  Lord!"  said  Nan  breathlessly.  "O  my  stars!" 
She  thought  of  it  a  moment,  and  he  thought  also,  and 
then  she  gathered  herself  hopefully.  "But,  Rookie  dear, 
you  believe  in  peace.  You  don't  have  to  carry  it  out  in 
her  way.  You  can  carry  it  out  in  yours — and  mine — and 
Dick's — we  that  have  seen  things  over  there.  Why,  bless 
you,  Rookie,  it's  a  great  idea.  It's  a  chance :  Liberty 
enlightening  the  world !  a  big  educational  fund,  and  you 
to  administer  it.  Cheer  up,  Rookie  dear.  It's  a  chance." 

"Oh,  no,  it's  not  a  chance,"  said  Raven  bitterly.  "She's 
seen  to  that.  She's  tied  me  up,  hand  and  foot.  It's  got 
to  be  done  in  her  way,  the  way  she'd  been  doing  it  herself 
since  1914." 

"The  acutely  sentimental?"  asked  Nan  ruthlessly. 
Then  the  miserv  of  his  face — a  look,  too,  of  mortifica 
tion  as  if  somebody  had  put  him  to  public  shame — hurt 
her  so  that  she  spoke  with  an  impetuous  bitterness  of 
her  own :  "It  was  a  cruel  thing  to  do.  Well,  it  was  like 
her." 

Raven  put  in  heavily : 

"She  never  meant  to  be  cruel." 

"No,"  said  Nan,  "but  the  whole  thing — all  the  things 
she  had  to  do  with — came  out  of  her  being  absolutely 
stupid  and  absolutely  sure  she  was  right." 

Raven  thought  apathetically  for  a  moment.  His  mind 
went  plodding  back  over  the  years  of  his  acquaintance 
with  Anne,  as  he  had  never  meant  it  should  again.  There 
had  been  moments,  of  late,  when  he  wondered  if  he  need 
ever  go  back  to  that  guiding  hand  of  hers  on  his  unre 
sponsive  life.  Of  herself,  he  would  have  protested,  he 
must  have  the  decency  to  think.  Just  now,  recurring 
to  that  also,  he  wondered,  with  a  grim  amusement,  whether 


22  OLD  CROW 

he  had  perhaps  meant  to  set  apart  a  day  for  it,  say 
Thursdays  from  ten  to  twelve,  to  think  gratefully  of 
Anne.  But  here  he  was  again  at  war  with  her,  and 
the  curious  part  of  it  seemed  to  be  that  he  couldn't  under 
take  the  warfare  with  the  old,  steady,  hopeless  persist 
ence  he  had  got  used  to  in  their  past ;  the  mere  thought 
of  it  had  roused  him  to  a  certain  alarming  wildness  of 
revolt. 

"Well,"  he  found  himself  saying  to  Nan,  because  there 
might  be  a  propriety  in  curbing  her  impetuous  conclu 
sions,  "she  had  a  way  of  being  right — -conventionally,  you 
might  say." 

"Was  she  right  about  the  War?"  Nan  threw  back  at 
him. 

"No,"  he  felt  obliged  to  own. 

"Is  she  right  about  this,  trying  to  fetter  you,  hand 
and  foot,  against  what  she  knew  you  believed,  and  bank 
ing  on  your  doing  it  because  she's  crowded  you  and  rushed 
you  so  many  times  and  you've  never  failed  her?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Raven  miserably,  "I've  failed  her  often 
enough." 

"But  answer  me  that :  was  she  right  when  she  left  you 
her  money  to  do  this  fool  thing  and  give  the  world  another 
kick  down  hill  where  the  sentimentalists  are  sending  it? 
Now  I  ask  you,  Rookie,  was  she  right?" 

"No,"  he  owned  again. 

"Then,"  said  Nan  triumphantly,  "you  mean  she's  right 
about  teas  and  dinners  and  women's  clubs  and  old  por 
traits  and  genealogy  and  believing  our  family  tree  was 
the  tree  of  life.  That's  what  you  mean,  isn't  it,  Rookie?" 

Raven  looked  at  her,  an  unhappy  smile  dawning.  He 
was  moderately  sure,  in  his  unspoken  certainties,  that 
this  was  what  he  did  mean.  She  had  been  the  perfect 
product  of  a  certain  form  of  civilization,  her  proprieties, 


OLD  CROW  23 

her  cruelties  even — though,  so  civilized  were  they,  they 
seemed  to  rank  only  as  spiritual  necessities. 

"I'd  rather  see  a  monkey  climbing  our  family  tree," 
said  Nan,  with  a  rash  irrelevance  she  hoped  might  shock 
him  into  the  reaction  of  a  wholesome  disapproval,  "than 
all  those  stiffs  she  used  to  hold  up  for  me  to  imitate." 

"Don't!"  said  Raven  involuntarily.  "It  would  hurt  her 
like  the  mischief  to  hear  you  say  a  thing  like  that." 

"Why,  Rookie,"  said  Nan,  with  a  tenderness  for  him 
alone,  he  saw,  not  for  Aunt  Anne,  "you  act  as  if  she  might 
be — in  the  room."  She  kept  a  merciful  restraint  on 
herself  there.  She  had  almost  said:  "You  act  as  if  you 
were  afraid  she  might  be  in  the  room." 

He  sat  staring  at  her  from  under  frowning  brows. 
WTas  it  possible,  his  startled  consciousness  asked  itself, 
that  the  spell  of  Anne's  tenacity  of  will  had  not  lifted 
in  the  least  and  he  did  think  she  might  be  in  the  room? 
Not  to  intimidate  him :  he  had  never  feared  her.  He  had 
been  under  the  yoke,  not  only  of  his  decent  gratitude, 
but  his  knowledge  of  the  frightful  hurts  he  could  deal 
her.  He  wondered  what  Nan  would  say  if  he  could  tell 
her  that,  if  he  could  paint  for  her  the  most  awful  hour 
in  his  remembrance,  more  terrible  even  than  that  of  see 
ing  his  mother  suffer  under  mortal  disease,  when  Anne 
had  actually  given  way  before  him,  the  only  time  in  her 
ordered  life,  and  accused  him  of  the  cruelty  of  not  loving 
her.  This  had  not  been  the  thin  passion  of  the  family 
portraits  smiling  down  on  them  from  her  walls,  but  the 
terrible  nerve-destroying  anguish  of  a  woman  scorned. 
That  was  one  of  the  things  in  his  life  he  never  allowed 
himself  to  think  about ;  but  it  would,  in  moments  of 
physical  weariness,  come  beating  at  the  door.  He  would 
hear  it  leave  the  threshold  while  he  sat,  hands  clenched 
and  lips  shut  tight,  and  go  prowling  round  the  house, 


24  OLD  CROW 

peering  in  at  him  through  the  windows,  bidding  him  waken 
and  remember.  And  when  he  did  find  himself  forced  to 
remember  before  he  could  get  out  of  doors  and  walk  or 
ride,  it  was  always  with  an  incredulous  amazement  that 
he  had,  in  that  moment  of  her  downfall,  found  the  cour 
age  to  withstand  her.  When  the  implacable  ghost  of 
remembrance  flashed  on  his  mind  the  picture  of  her,  face 
wet  with  streaming  tears,  hands  outstretched  to  him— 
beautiful  hands,  the  product  of  five  generations  of  idleness 
and  care — why  did  he  not  meet  her  passion  with  some 
decency  of  response,  swear  he  did  love  her,  and  spend 
the  rest  of  his  life  in  making  good?  Would  a  lifetime 
of  dogged  endurance  be  too  much  for  a  man  to  give,  to 
save  all  this  inherited  delicacy  of  type  from  the  ruin  of 
knowing  it  had  betrayed  itself  and  was  delicate  no  more? 
— the  keenest  pang  it  could  feel  in  a  world  made,  to  that 
circumscribed,  over-cultured  intelligence,  for  the  nurture 
of  such  flowers  of  life.  He  felt,  as  he  stood  there  looking 
despairingly  upon  her,  as  if  he  had  seen  all  the  manu 
factured  expensiveness  of  the  world,  lustrous  silks,  bloom 
of  velvet,  filigreed  jewels,  in  rags  and  ruin.  Yet  there 
was  more,  and  this  it  was  that  had  brought  enduring 
remorse  to  his  mind.  It  was  pride.  That  was  in  ruins. 
If  she  had  assaulted  him  with  the  reproaches  of  an  unfed 
passion,  there  would  have  been  some  savage  response  of 
rebuttal  in  him,  to  save  them  both  from  this  meager 
sort  of  shame.  But  what  could  heal  in  a  man's  mind  the 
vision  of  a  woman's  murdered  pride,  as  deep  as  the  pride 
of  queens,  in  the  days  when  the  world  itself  bowed  its 
neck  for  queens  to  set  their  feet  on?  Nan  was  looking 
at  him  curiously.  He  became  aware  of  it,  and  returned 
to  himself  with  a  start.  He  must,  he  judged,  have  been 
acting  queerly.  It  had  never  happened  before  that  he  had 
been  under  other  eyes  when  the  vision  rose  to  plague  him. 


OLD  CROW  25 

"You've  been  such  a  long  time  without  speaking,"  said 
Nan  gently.  "What  is  it,  Rookie  dear?" 

He  shook  his  head.  His  forehead  was  damp  with  the 
sweat  of  his  renewed  remorses. 

"There's  such  a  lot  of  things,  Nan,"  he  answered, 
"that  can't  be  said." 

"Yes,"  she  agreed,  "that's  true.  Want  me  to  go 
home?" 

He  didn't  want  her  to  go  home.  He  caught  at  her  dear 
presence.  Almost  he  wished  he  might  tell  her  how  hor 
rible  it  was,  not  only  to  repudiate  Anne's  last  request  of 
him,  but  to  feel  he  was  repudiating  it  on  the  heels  of 
that  other  refusal  years  ago. 

"No,  dear,"  he  said,  "not  yet.  I'll  go  with  you  when 
you  must." 

"I  don't  believe,"  Nan  ventured,  "it's  as  bad  as  you 
think.  She  did  do  some  foolish  things,"  she  meditated, 
"these  last  years." 

"She  did  some  hideous  things,"  said  Raven,  "because 
they  weren't  normal.  They  weren't  decent.  And  so  they 
weren't  right." 

"Maybe  I  don't  know  so  much  as  you  do  about  them," 
said  Nan.  "You  see  she  was  so  furious  with  me  for  going 
to  France " 

"Oh,  don't  say  she  was  furious,"  urged  Raven,  still  out 
of  that  sense  of  her  being  in  the  room.  "It  would  hurt 
her  so  confoundedly." 

"Well,  she  was,  you  see,"  said  Nan.  "I  thought  you 
knew  about  it.  But  I  remember,  you'd  gone.  And  when 
I  told  her  I  was  going  over,  she  was  furious.  Oh,  she 
was,  Rookie !  You  can't  say  anything  else.  I  know 
Aunt  Anne." 

"But  just  cut  out  some  of  the  adjectives,"  said  Raven, 
still  with  that  sense  of  Anne's  being  in  the  room  and  the 


26  OLD  CROW 

unsportsmanlike  business  of  putting  her  in  her  place  when 
she  could  not,  even  from  her  place,  defend  herself.  "She 
never  was  furious.  She  simply  didn't  believe  in  war  and 
she  wouldn't  join  any  relief  work  and  didn't  want  you  to." 

"She  wouldn't  join  any  relief  work,"  said  Nan,  relent 
lessly  rehearsing.  "She  said  the  most  frightful  things 
and  said  them  publicly.  She  ought  to  have  been  arrested, 
only  they  didn't  take  the  trouble.  She  wasn't  a  Quaker. 
There  was  nothing  inbred  to  excuse  her.  We're  decent 
folks,  Rookie,  we  Hamiltons.  But  she  stood  for  non- 
resistance.  She  said  Belgium  shouldn't  have  resisted,  and 
England  shouldn't  have  gone  in,  and  France  shouldn't 
have  lifted  a  finger  or  thrown  a  bomb,  and  when  you  told 
her — that  is,  I  told  her — she  was  crazy,  she  said  something 
awful." 

Raven  was  startled  out  of  his  determination  to  show  no 
curiosity. 

"What  did  she  say?"  he  asked.  "What  was  it  that  was 
awful?" 

Nan  seemed  to  have  paled  a  little  under  the  rose-leaf 
texture  of  her  cheek. 

"Why,  you  know,"  she  said,  "what  they  all  come  back 
to.  Whatever  they  believe,  they  come  back  to  that.  I 
don't  see  how  they  can.  I  couldn't,  it  scares  me  so. 
They  tell  you  what  He  said— Christ." 

Raven  sat  looking  at  her,  wondering  absently,  in  the 
unregarded  depths  of  his  mind,  how  they  could  go  on 
with  a  talk  that  was  ploughing  deeper  and  deeper  and 
yet  could  get  nowhere  in  the  end.  For  certainly  they 
were  both  mercifully  bent  on  saving  Anne,  and  Anne, 
under  this  shadow  of  her  latest  past,  herself  would  not  let 
them. 

"She  absolutely  forbade  my  going  to  France,"  said 
Nan,  this  with  no  special  feeling,  but  as  if  she  had  dwelt 


OLD  CROW  27 

on  it  until  there  was  no  emotion  left  to  put  into  it.  "She 
said  it  was  notoriety  I  wanted.  I  told  her  I'd  scrub  floors 
over  there,  if  they  wanted  me  to.  It  proved  I  did,  too, 
you  know.  I  did  it  remarkably  well.  And  then  she  said 
she  forbade  me,  and  I  reminded  her  I  was  of  age  and  had 
my  own  money.  And  I  went." 

Raven  nodded.  He  thought  they  had  said  enough,  but 
Nan's  calm  impartiality  did  rest  him.  It  was  something 
he  could  not  himself  attain. 

"And  now,"  said  Nan,  "she  wants  you  to  keep  on  doing 
the  fool  things  she'd  have  done  then,  if  they'd  let  her.  She 
probably  wants  to  get  up  a  big  scheme  of  propaganda  and 
put  it  into  the  schools.  And  every  blessed  boy  and  girl 
in  this  country  is  to  be  taught  not  to  serve  the  truth  and 
do  his  job  but — safety  first." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  drearily  "I  suppose  that's 
about  it." 

"But  actually,"  said  Nan,  suddenly  aware  that  he  had 
not  told  her,  "what  does  she  say?  Does  she  specify? 
What  does  she  say?" 

"She  says,"  Raven  answered,  in  a  toneless  voice,  glanc 
ing  at  the  letter  but  making  no  movement  toward  sharing 
it  with  her  more  definitely,  "that  her  money  is  to  build 
a  Palace  of  Peace — she  doesn't  say  where — for  lectures, 
demonstrations  of  the  sort  I  know  she  approves,  all  the 
activities  possible  in  the  lines  she  has  been  following — for 
the  doctrine  of  non-resistance  and  the  consequent  abolish 
ment  of  war." 

Again  he  ended  drearily. 

"Well,"  said  Nan,  "what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ? 
going  to  spend  your  life  and  the  lives  of  a  lot  of  more  or 
less  intelligent  pacifists  teaching  children  to  compute  the 
number  of  movies  they  could  go  to  for  the  money  spent  on 
one  battleship " 


28  OLD  CROW 

"But,  good  God,  Nan!"  Raven  broken  in,  "you  and  I 
don't  want  to  preach  war." 

"No,"  said  Nan,  "but  we  can't  let  Aunt  Anne  preach 
peace :  not  her  brand,  as  we've  seen  it.  O  Rookie !  what's 
the  use  of  taking  the  world  as  it  isn't?  Why  don't  we 
see  if  we  can't  make  something  of  the  old  thing  as  it  is  and 
has  been?  and  blest  if  I  don't  believe  as  it  always  will  be?" 

Raven  looked  at  her  in  a  maze  of  interrogation.  Was 
this  the  fragility  of  girlhood  speaking,  or  was  it  woman 
hood,  old  as  time  itself,  with  the  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil?  She  answered  the  look. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I'm  not  a  kid.  Don't  think  it.  I 
suppose  it's  because  I've  seen — life." 

The  pause  before  the  last  word,  the  drop  on  the  word 
itself  was  not  from  bitterness,  he  knew.  Rut  it  was  sad. 

"Well,"  he  said  irrepressibly,  "you've  seen  life,  and  what 
do  you  think  of  it?" 

She  hesitated.  Then  she  put  out  her  hand  and  touched 
the  petal  of  a  rose,  one  of  a  great  dome  of  splendor  in  a 
bowl. 

"I  like — roses,"  she  said  whimsically. 

She  looked  at  him  with  that  most  moving  look  of  a 
lovely  face:  the  knitted  brows  of  rueful  questioning,  the 
smiling  lips.  Raven,  staring  back  at  her,  felt  a  sudden 
impulse  to  speak,  to  tell.  It  was  the  form  of  her  reply 
that  invited  him. 

"I  don't  believe,  Nan,"  he  said,  "I  even  care  about  roses. 
I  don't  care  about  the  whole  infernal  scheme.  That's  what 
I  sent  for  Dick  for — to  tell  him.  Practically,  you  know 
I  should  have  to  tell  Dick.  And  I  haven't  done  it  and 
now  I'm  telling  you." 


Ill 


Nan  sat  looking  at  him  with  an  air  of  patient  alert 
ness,  ready,  he  saw,  to  meet  what  he  had  to  say  and  do  the 
best  she  could  with  it.  He  had  an  irritated  apprehension 
that,  as  her  work  through  the  last  few  years  had  lain 
chiefly  in  meeting  emergencies,  so  now  he  was  an  emerg 
ency.  And  as  Dick,  poet  though  the  inner  circle  of  jour 
nalism  had  listed  him,  might  not  understand  in  the  least 
what  he  was  driving  at,  so  there  was  danger  of  Nan's 
understanding  too  quickly  and  too  much,  with  the  result 
ant  embarrassment  of  thinking  something  could  be  done. 
And  nothing  could  be  done  beyond  the  palliatives  he 
meant  to  allow  himself.  He  would  try  her.  He  might 
see  how  far  she  would  insist  on  going  with  him  along  his 
dreary  way.  What  if  she  had  Anne's  over-developed  and 
thwarted  maternity  of  helpfulness?  What  if  she  insisted 
on  going  all  the  way  and  never  leaving  him  to  the  blessed 
seclusion  of  his  own  soul? 

"You  see,  Nan,"  he  adventured,  "I'm  sick  of  the  whole 
show." 

She  nodded. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  know.  Coming  back.  Finding  we 
aren't  any  better  than  we  were  before  we  got  frightened 
and  said  our  prayers  and  promised  God  if  He'd  stop  the 
War  we'd  be  different  forever  and  ever,  amen.  That's  it, 
Rookie,  isn't  it?" 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Raven,  staring  at  her,  she  seemed  so 

29 


30  OLD  CROW 

accurate,  according  to  his  own  mental  gauging,  and  so 
unmoved  in  her  flippancy,  "that's  pretty  nearly  it." 

She  nodded  at  him  again,  whether  to  hearten  him  or 
to  assure  him  of  their  perfect  unison  he  could  not  tell. 

"It  was  an  awful  jolt,  wasn't  it?"  she  inquired  frankly. 
"You  know,  I  should  think  it  might  make  some  of  them 
laugh,  the  ones  they  say  observe  us  from — where  is  it 
from?  Mars?  up  in  the  heavens  somewhere.  It's  like  read 
ing  a  bitter  sort  of  book.  It  is  funny.  Rookie,  don't  you 
think  it's  funny?" 

Raven  remembered  a  character  in  Mr.  Owen 
Wister's  "Virginian,"  the  hen  crazed  by  her  thwarted 
destiny. 

"Well,"  he  said,  quoting  "The  Virginian,"  "not  so 
damned  funny  either.  But  how  the  dickens  did  you  know 
what  I  was  going  to  say?" 

"Because  it's  what  we've  all  come  back  to,"  said  she, 
"and  what  everybody  that  stayed  at  home  feels,  or  ought 
to  if  they've  got  anything  inside  their  nuts.  Just  think, 
Rookie !  we  were  like  the  great  multitude  in  the  Bible, 
somewhere,  praising  God.  We  broke  our  idols  and — I  don't 
know  what  we  didn't  do.  And  now  we're  not  scared  any 
more,  we've  set  'em  up  again :  same  old  idols.  Rookie,  I  bet 
you  the  only  reason  we  ever  sacrificed  to  God  at  all  was 
because  we  thought  He  was  the  biggest  joss  and  things 
were  so  desperate  and  all,  we'd  better  make  a  sure  thing 
of  it.  And  now  we  think  we  aren't  in  any  particular 
danger,  seems  as  if  the  little  gods  would  do,  same  as  they 
did  before ;  and  they're  not  so  expensive." 

"Goodness,  Nan !"  said  Raven,  "how  naughty  you  are. 
You  didn't  use  to  run  on  so." 

"I  haven't  talked  very  much  to  you,"  said  Nan  drily, 
"not  since  I  grew  up." 

He  knew  it  was  true,  and  knew  also  that  the  reason 


OLD  CROW  31 

was,  if  she  had  allowed  her  lips  to  utter  it,  "Aunt  Anne 
wouldn't  let  me." 

"But,"  she  said,  "I  don't  understand  altogether.  I 
know  you're  mad  and  discouraged  and  all  the  rest  of  it. 
But  I  don't  see  what  Dick  has  got  to  do  with  it." 

"It's  simply  this,"  said  Raven.  "I'm  going  away." 

She  looked  at  him  in  what  seemed  to  be  serious  alarm. 

"Relief  work?"  she  asked.     "Reconstruction?" 

"No,"  said  Raven.  "I  don't  believe  I  should  be  any 
good  to  them.  There  isn't  a  blamed  thing  I  can  do,  so  far 
as  I  see,  except  for  what  money  I've  got.  I'm  no  good, 
Nan.  I  shouldn't  sell  for  my  hide  and  horns.  And  I  hate 
the  whole  blamed  show.  I'm  sick  of  it.  I'm  sick  of  the 
system,  from  the  beasts  that  devour  one  another  to  the 
rest  of  us.  And  I'm  simply  going  to  desert.  I'm  going 
to  run  away." 

"Where?"  asked  Nan.  "You  can't  run  away  from  the 
earth." 

"No,"  said  Raven,  "I  can't  jump  off.  So  I'm  going  to 
do  the  next  convenient  thing.  I'm  going  up  to  Wake  Hill 
and  shovel  snow  with  Jerry,  and  maybe  get  into  the 
woods  and  do  some  thinning  out  and,  if  I  remember  any 
thing  about  the  millennium  we've  just  shaved  the  edge  of, 
just  say  to  myself  there  ain't  a-going  to  be  no  millenium, 
so  I  can  shut  up." 

"You've  taken  advice,  haven't  you?"  she  concluded. 
"That's  what  they've  prescribed.  I  suppose  it's  all  right." 

"Good  God,  no !"  said  Raven.  "Do  you  think  I've  been 
to  a  doctor  and  turned  myself  inside  out?  I'm  going 
because  Wake  Hill  is  as  far  out  of  the  world  as  I  can 
manage.  If  the  whole  earth  hadn't  gone  crazy,  I'd  cut 
stick  for  Tartary  or  some  confounded  place  that  isn't  on 
the  map.  But  they're  all  on  the  map.  There  isn't  an  inch 
of  ground  that  isn't  under  some  sort  of  moral  searchlight. 


32  OLD  CROW 

No,  I'll  be  hanged  if  it's  moral.  It's  only  the  mites  in  the 
cheese  getting  busy  and  stirring  up  fermentation." 

Nan  laughed  out  and  then  looked  up  at  him  in  her 
rueful  apology. 

"I  couldn't  help  it,"  she  said.  "I  thought  of  Dick,  your 
telling  him.  Dick's  just  got  his  book  ready  for  the 
printer:  Democracy,  you  know,  in  three-legged  verse. 
And  they'll  say  it's  full  of  insight  and  prophecy.  That's 
what  they  said  about  the  other  one:  insight,  prophecy! 
But  Dick  won't  have  the  least  idea  what  you're  driv 
ing  at." 

"You  see,"  said  Raven,  "he's  thinking  of  doing  some 
stiff  work  and  getting  a  degree :  a  sort  of  sop  to  his 
mother.  She's  as  wild  as  a  hawk,  you  know,  to  get  him  to 
distinguish  himself,  doesn't  much  care  how.  I'd  meant  to 
ask  him  to  camp  here  with  me  this  winter.  I  believe  I 
did  actually  ask  him,  now  I  think  of  it." 

"Yes,  you  did,"  said  Nan.  "It'll  make  a  lot  of  differ 
ence  to  him,  your  being  away." 

"I  don't  think  so,"  said  Raven.  "Anyhow,  he'll  have 
to  get  used  to  it,  especially  as  I'm  not  merely  going  away. 
I'm  getting  out,  out  of  the  business  and  all." 

He  was  really  surprising  her  now.  She  had  grown  up 
in  the  atmosphere  of  belief  in  that  particular  business. 
When  a  Hamilton  said  his  earthly  creed,  he  would  have 
begun,  if  he  had  been  honest,  "I  believe  in  wool." 

"You're  not  retiring?"  she  hesitated. 

"Yes." 

"Made  your  pile,  Rookie?" 

At  once  they  thought  of  Anne  and  the  new  complica 
tion  she  had  saddled  him  with. 

"That  isn't  the  question,"  he  evaded.  "The  amount 
of  it  is,  I  couldn't  go  to  the  office  every  morning  and  come 
home  and  go  the  next  day,  without — well,  Nan,  frankly, 


OLD  CROW  33 

going  off  my  nut.  I  hate  it.  I  hate  the  whole  business 
of  what  we  call  civilized  life.  I  even  think  of  giving  Dick 
power  of  attorney  and  passing  all  my  stuff  over  into  his 
hands. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Nan  quickly,  "you  mustn't  do  that." 

He  frowned  at  her,  perplexedly. 

"Don't  you  tmst  him?"  he  asked.  "Don't  you  trust 
Dick?" 

"Of  course  I  trust  Dick,"  said  she  impatiently,  "his 
intentions,  that  is." 

"You  ought  to,"  said  Raven.  "You're  bound  to,  the 
man  you're  going  to  marry." 

She  kept  her  eyes  on  him,  but  she  said  nothing.  And 
suddenly  Raven  realized  that  he  wanted  to  know  about 
this  business  of  marrying  Dick.  He  wanted  to  know  tre 
mendously.  Yet,  though  this  was  the  little  Nan  who 
sometimes  used  to  seem  more  his  child  than  anybody's,  he 
could  not  ask  her.  She  looked  difficult,  if  not  wayward. 

"Well,"  he  compromised,  "that's  about  where  it  is.  I'm 
going  into  the  country,  to  get  away  from  the  clack  of 
men.  My  income,  all  but  the  little  of  it  I  set  aside  for 
food  and  taxes,  will  go  to  France.  It  may  go  through 

Dick  or  it  may Oh,  well,  well,"  he  added,  seeing  the 

quick  rebuttal  again  on  her  face,  "that  hasn't  got  to  be 
decided  in  a  hurry.  But  ultimately  it  goes  to  France." 

"Why  France?"  asked  Nan.  "I  see,  though.  They're 
all  deserting  her." 

"It  isn't  altogether  that,"  said  Raven,  as  if  he  hadn't 
finished  thinking  it  out.  "It's  because  I  believe  in  her  so 
tremendously,  that  quick  intelligence  of  hers.  She  mustn't 
be  downed,  mustn't  be  kept  depleted.  It's  a  loss  too  hor 
rible  to  face.  She  sees  the  world  as  it  is.  She  knows  the 
dangers.  She's  got  to  be  protected  from  them,  so  she  can 
go  on  seeing." 


34  OLD  CROW 

"What  does  she  see?"  asked  Nan  curiously.  "What 
kind  of  thing?" 

"Everything.  Life.  When  it  comes  to  what  the  col 
lective  brain  can  do,  you  can't  limit  her.  You  never'll 
make  her  believe  in  miracles,  but  she  can  find  out  how 
they're  done." 

"Mercy !"  said  Nan.     "You  talk  like  a  book." 

"Notes,  for  an  essay :  'France.'  I've  been  thinking  'em 
out.  How  she  ought  to  be  given  a  hand,  so  she  doesn't 
have  to  spend  the  next  thirty  years  or  so  outwitting  the 
German  devil.  That's  hard  sledding  for  her  beautiful 
intelligence.  She  ought  to  be  safe,  so  she  can  turn  it 
to  other  things:  the  science  of  living,  hers,  ours,  every 
body's." 

"Ah,"  said  Nan,  "but  they'll  tell  you  it  won't  be  for 
everybody :  only  France." 

"That's  the  point,"  said  Raven.  "It's  a  gamble.  But 
they  can't  deny  she's  got  the  beautiful  intelligence.  I 
can  trust  anything  so  perfect.  I  trust  it  absolutely." 

"Why  don't  we  do  it  ourselves?  Build  a  fire  under  us, 
Rookie.  Come  on !" 

"We  aren't  homogeneous,"  said  Raven.  "We've  no 
race  spirit,  no  live  nerve  through  the  whole  of  us.  France 
has.  That  mind  of  hers,  that  leaping  intelligence !  If 
she  were  as  holy  as  she  is  keen,  she'd  make  the  world  the 
poets  dreamed  of." 

"Then  go  to  it,"  said  Nan.  "Turn  in  your  money.  I 
will  mine.  Stump  you  !" 

"Not  3ret,"  said  Raven.  "You  sit  tight  and  see  how 
I  come  out.  I  haven't  got  enough  to  set  the  Seine  afire, 
but  such  as  it  is,  I'd  like  to  turn  it  over  to  her  for  what 
she  needs  most :  agriculture,  schools,  research.  Adminis 
tered  so  it  could  be  withdrawn  if  she  didn't  make  good 
and  turned  in  somewhere  else.  Oh,  it's  a  gamble!  I  told 


OLD  CROW  35 

you  it  was.  But  administered,  mind  you.  That's  the 
point." 

"Through  Dick,"  she  commented,  plainly  with  dissatis 
faction.  "Now,  why  Dick?" 

"Because,"  said  Raven,  "Dick's  got  a  head  for  organ 
izing.  He's  his  father  over  again,  plus  the  Raven  streak. 
And  the  Raven  streak  doesn't  do  him  any  harm.  It  isn't 
soft,  like  Old  Crow — and  me.  It's  his  mother  in  him,  and 
she  takes  back — but  O  Lord!  what's  the  sense  of  going 
into  that?" 

"Anyhow,"  said  Nan,  with  decision,  "you  keep  your 
affairs  in  your  own  hands." 

"For  the  present,  yes,"  said  Raven.  "And  I  do  want 
to  think  it  out  in  detail.  I  can  do  it  at  Wake  Hill.  I 
shall  get  on  my  pins  enough  for  that." 

"Isn't  it  funny?"  said  she.  "Aunt  Anne  with  her  Palace 
of  Peace  and  you  with  your  invincible  France.  But, 
Rookie,  you  hear  to  me.  Whatever  you  do  with  your 
own  money,  you  do  it  your  own  way.  Don't  be  a  slacker." 

Raven  sat  looking  at  her,  a  slow  smile  dawning.  He 
rather  liked  Nan's  taking  him  in  hand. 

"That's  it,  is  it?"  he  asked,  with  a  relish  she  was  glad 
to  see.  "A  slacker!  so  be  it.  If  I'm  a  slacker,  I  am. 
I'm  a  conscientious  objector.  What  I  object  to  is  the 
universe,  the  pattern  it's  made  on.  I  object  to  the  way 
we're  running  it,  and,  being  made  as  we  are,  I  don't  see 
how  we  can  be  expected  to  do  anything  but  what  we're 
doing.  It's  a  perfectly  logical  proposition.  And  except 
for  a  few  minor  chores  I've  got  to  see  to,  I  simply  won't 
play." 

Nan  was  thinking.  She  looked  down  at  her  hands, 
lying  in  her  lap.  Raven  looked  at  them  also  and  won 
dered,  as  he  often  had,  since  they  came  home,  how  such 
hands  could  have  done  the  tasks  she  set  them  to.  She 


36  OLD  CROW 

looked  up  and  met  his  eyes  gravely  with  something  im 
perative  in  hers.  It  is  a  way  women  have  sometimes. 
They  seem  to  be  calling  on  the  boy  in  man  and  bidding 
him  take  heed. 

"I  wouldn't,"  said  she,  "talk  to  Dick  about  going  to 
Wake  Hill." 

"What  would  you  do?  Cut  stick,  and  let  him  wonder 
what  in  the  deuce  it's  all  about?" 

"I  wouldn't  talk;  I'd  write." 

"Oh,  write! — what's  the  difference?" 

"If  you  talk,  he'll  say  something  that'll  shut  you  up 
and  you'll  be  just  as  far  apart  as  you  are  to-day.  If 
you  write,  you  can  tell  him  as  much  as  you  want  to 
and  no  more.  And  the  first  thing  he'll  do  will  be  to  bring 
the  letter  to  me." 

"I  see,"  said  Raven.     "And  you'll  interpret." 

"I'll  interpret.  I  can,  Rookie.  I  know  you,  don't  I? 
and  I  know  Dick." 

"You  ought  to,"  said  Raven  rashly  again  because  he 
was  again  curious,  "the  man  you're  going  to  marry." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan  calmly,  rising,  "the  man  I'm  going 
to  marry.  Only" — her  face,  as  she  turned  it  to  him, 
brimmed  over  with  a  childish  sort  of  fun — "don't  tell  him 
that,  Rookie.  It's  perfectly  true  I  haven't  ^romised  him. 
And  I  don't  mean  to — yet." 

"Quite  right,"  said  Raven,  rising.  He  felt  a  distinct 
relief.  He,  too,  wanted  to  see  what  Dick  would  make  of 
himself.  "You  do  your  own  telling." 

"There  he  is,"  said  Nan,  "just  as  it  is  in  a  play.  We've 
got  to  a  climax  and  he  comes  in  at  the  door.  But, 

Rookie '      She  stopped,  for  Dick  was  nearing  in  the 

hall,  and  Raven  knew  what  she  would  have  said.  It  was 
in  both  their  minds.  They  hadn't  finished  their  talk.  It 
had  merely  strayed  into  another  channel,  or  bolted  and 


OLD  CROW  37 

run  away  there.  Aunt  Anne's  money  and  her  Palace  of 
Peace  still  stared  them  in  the  face.  Dick  put  his  head 
in  at  the  door.  He  looked  rather  sheepish,  as  if  his  dig 
nified  going  had  been  invalidated  by  this  impetuous  coming 
back,  as  if  he  couldn't  live  without  Nan  and  she  was  bound 
to  see  through  it. 

"Well?"  he  said  gruffly.     "Talked  out?" 
They  both  laughed,  with  the  sudden   absurdity  of  it. 
How  should  they,  their  eyes  questioned  each  other,  ever 
be  talked  out,  what  with  Aunt  Anne  and  the  universe  and 
France? 

"Absolutely,"  said  Nan.     "Good  night,  Rookie.     Going 
to  write  your  letter?     Come  on,  Dick." 


IV 


Raven  sat  down  at  the  table  and  began  his  letter.  He 
was  wrestling  with  it  at  once,  to  give  himself  no  time  to 
argue  over  the  point  of  its  being  no  ordinary  letter  such 
as  he  had  been  accustomed  to  write  to  Dick.  He  began 
with  the  succinct  statement  of  what  he  meant  to  do.  He 
had  made  all  his  arrangements  for  getting  out  of  the 
business.  They  could  be  concluded  in  short  order.  As 
to  the  business  itself,  he  had  no  complaint  to  make.  The 
old  man — he  permitted  himself  this  indulgence  as  he  never 
could  have  in  Anne's  lifetime,  as  touching  her  father — the 
old  man  had  been  square  all  through.  He  was  as  good 
as  they  make  'em.  But  there  was  nothing  for  him,  Raven, 
in  the  concern  except  its  cumulative  capacity  for  making 
money.  He'd  no  traditional  pride  in  it,  as  the  old  man 
had.  He'd  worked  for  all  he  was  worth,  to  squeeze  every 
drop  he  could  out  of  it  so  that  his  mother — "your  grand 
mother,  you  know,  Dick" — might  have  every  last  luxury 
she  wanted.  Well,  she'd  had  'em,  though  one  of  the  ironi 
cal  things  about  it  was  that  she  didn't  want  so  very 
many,  and  he  needn't  have  worked  so  hard  or  so  long. 
However,  that's  neither  here  nor  there.  What's  done  is 
done.  The  War's  done — they  say — and  the  thing  that 

would  please  Raven  best  would  be Here  he  brought  up 

with  a  full  stop.  He  was  running  into  dangerous  revela 
tions,  going  back  to  a  previous  state  of  mind,  one  he  had 
begun  cherishing  as  soon  as  his  mother  died,  and  even 


OLD  CROW  39 

caressed,  with  a  sort  of  denied  passion,  when  Anne  also 
died,  and  he  felt  so  shamefacedly  free.  All  his  life  he 
had  wanted  to  wander,  to  explore,  to  bruise  himself  against 
the  earth  and  pick  himself  up  and  go  on  and  get  bruised 
again.  He  loved  the  earth,  he  wanted  her,  in  her  mag 
nificence  and  cruelty,  wanted  to  write  about  her,  and 
make  the  portrait  of  her  for  stay-at-homes  who  weren't 
adventurous  and  were  content  with  reading  about  her  in 
the  blank  moments  after  the  office  grind.  Yet  he  was 
a  stay-at-home  himself.  Why?  in  God's  name  why? 

He  asked  himself  the  question,  as  he  sat  with  lifted 
pen,  almost  the  words  dropping  off  it,  to  tell  Dick  the 
things  it  would  be  simply  disconcerting  to  know.  Raven 
saw,  with  a  sad  clearness,  why  he  hadn't  written  the  books 
he  wanted  to  about  the  earth.  They  would  have  been 
rough  books,  full  of  rock  and  clay  and  the  tumbling  of 
rivers  and  thunder  grumbling  in  the  clouds.  If  he  had 
been  really  afraid  of  Anne  and  her  ordered  ambitions  for 
him,  he  could  have  printed  them  under  an  assumed  name. 
She  need  never  have  known  at  all.  They  wouldn't  have 
been  the  books  he  could  have  written  if  he  had  been 
foot-loose  and  gone  blundering  along  in  strange  trails  over 
the  earth,  but  they  might  have  held  something  of  the  sort 
his  inner  man  wanted  to  fashion.  And  if  the  secret  of 
them  had  been  kept,  they  needn't  have  interfered  with  his 
smug  little  folk  stories  Anne  and  her  women's  clubs  prized 
so  much.  Had  he  been  actually  afraid  of  Anne?  Was 
he  one  of  the  men  who  are  shamefully  under  the  feminine 
finger,  subject  to  mother,  subject  to  wife,  without  the 
nerve — scarcely  the  wish,  indeed — to  break  away?  He 
was  not  afraid  of  his  mother,  or,  if  he  had  been,  it  was 
the  fear  of  hurting  her  who  had  been  so  hurt  already. 
Ever  since  he  could  remember,  he  saw  himself,  even  as  a 
little  boy,  trying  to  get  her  away  from  his  father  who 


40  OLD  CROW 

had  a  positive  cast  of  mind,  a  perfect  certainty  of  being 
right  and  a  confirmed  belief  that  robust  measures  always 
were  the  thing.  If  you  did  wrong,  you  were  to  be  pun 
ished,  promptly  and  effectually.  If  you  were  afraid  of 
the  dark,  and  came  downstairs  in  your  nightgown  upon 
the  family  sitting  by  the  lamp,  you  were  whaled  for  it, 
to  teach  you  there  was  something  worse  than  bed  even 
in  the  dark.  If  you  said  your  head  ached  and  you  couldn't 
eat  bacon  and  greens,  which  father  elected  to  consider  a 
normal  dish,  you  were  made  to  eat  a  lot  with  no  matter 
what  dire  result,  because  there  wasn't  a  physical  ill  which 
couldn't  be  mended  by  treating  it  robustly.  He  was  God. 
He  knew.  And  he  was  perfectly  well  and  had  never  once 
for  half  a  minute  entered  into  those  disordered  cells  of 
bodily  ill  where  the  atom  cries  to  its  Creator  in  an 
anguish  of  bewilderment  and  pain.  And  when  his  body 
met  the  fate  appointed  for  its  destruction,  as  all  bodies 
must,  and  he  was  brought  home  broken  after  the  runaway 
that  made  him  a  thing  almost  too  terrible  to  look  upon, 
except  by  eyes  so  full  of  compassion  that  they  love  the 
more,  Raven,  then  a  very  little  John,  found  himself  won 
dering  how  it  seemed  to  father  now.  Even  runaways, 
father  had  appeared  to  think,  could  always  be  governed, 
if  you  kept  your  head. 

They  never  knew  what  he  thought.  He  died  quickly, 
under  opiates,  and  John  believed  his  mother  was  so  thank 
ful  for  the  merciful  haste  of  it  that  she  could  not,  until 
long  after,  recall  herself  to  mourn.  And  she  did  honestly 
mourn.  The  little  John  was  glad  of  that.  So  ill  and  tired 
had  she  been  for  years  and  yet  so  bound  upon  the  rack 
of  her  husband's  Spartan  theories  for  her,  that  John 
thought  he  could  not  have  borne  it  if  she  had  not  adored 
her  righteous  tormentor,  if  she  had  had  to  look  on  him 
as  her  master,  not  her  lord  by  love.  It  seemed  to  him 


OLD  CROW  41 

he  was  always  mourning  over  his  mother,  in  those  days, 
always  lying  awake  and  wondering  if  she  were  awake, 
too,  always  trying  to  save  her  from  some  task  too  heavy 
for  her  and  too  heavy  for  him  also,  so  that,  if  she  were 
to  be  saved,  it  had  to  be  by  stratagem.  But  stratagem 
was  difficult  in  that  house,  because  his  older  sister,  who 
became  Dick's  mother,  was  of  her  father's  temperament, 
always  perfectly  well  and  also  an  inferior  god  who  knew 
at  every  point  what  to  do,  and  she  had  not  merely  imbibed 
father's  certainty  that  the  only  thing  mother  needed  was 
to  take  a  brace:  she  had  it  by  nature.  And  when,  father 
being  gone  to  heaven — and  John,  young  John  now,  not 
little  any  more,  made  no  doubt  he  had  gone,  it  pleased 
mother  so  to  say  it  and  be  obligingly  agreed  with — Amelia, 
his  sister,  took  her  departure,  on  the  night  of  her  mar 
riage  with  a  very  prosperous  Mr.  Powell,  for  the  middle 
west,  John  Raven,  then  beginning  his  apprenticeship  to 
wool,  danced  a  fantastic  fling  in  the  sitting-room  where 
the  wedding  gifts  still  lay  displayed  and  whooped  with 
emotion  at  last  let  loose.  His  mother,  in  the  gray  silk 
and  commendable  lace  Amelia  had  selected  and  he  had 
paid  for,  did  smile  unwillingly,  but  she  spoke  to  him  in 
the  reproving  tone  which  was  the  limit  of  severity  his 
boyhood  had  known  from  her  and  which  he  had  learned, 
in  those  earliest  days,  meant  nothing  at  all: 

"I'd  be  ashamed !  Any  one  would  think  you  were  glad 
your  sister  had  gone!" 

John  did  not  say  he  was  glad.  He  knew  too  much  to 
stir  up  loyal  reactions  in  mother's  conscience.  He  sim 
ply  wove  a  dance  of  intricate  mazes  about  her,  as  she  sat 
in  her  chair,  and  his  inner  mind  was  one  pa?an  of  thanks 
giving  to  God,  not  the  spurious  gods  who  had  been  his 
father  and  sister,  but  the  mysterious  Deity  who  had,  for 
obscure  purposes,  called  them  into  being,  because  now 


42  OLD  CROW 

John  had  at  last  full  swing  and  could  let  mother  out  of 
bondage.  What  difference  did  it  make  that  he  wasn't 
trekking  through  darkest  Africa  or  being  hunted  by  the 
jungle  in  India,  so  long  as  mother  was  out  of  bondage? 
He  even  took  his  allegiance  to  Anne  rather  lightly,  those 
first  years,  he  was  so  absent-minded  about  everything  but 
hypnotising  mother  into  thinking  she  was  going  to  be 
very  happy  and  live  a  long  time  doing  it.  And  that  was 
the  part  of  his  life  when  there  seemed  to  be  a  great  deal 
of  it,  and  if  he  didn't  have  a  thing  now  there  would  be 
plenty  of  chances  to  snatch  at  it  later.  He  had  simply 
been  eaten  up,  the  energy  of  him,  the  will,  perhaps,  by 
compassion.  And  then  his  mother  had  died  and  he  knew 
he  could  have  done  no  more  for  her  than  he  had  done, 
and  while  he  was  turning  round  to  look  about  him — and 
ah !  in  that  lean  year  came  Anne's  horrible  accusation 
that  he  did  not  love  her ! — the  War  broke  out,  and  he  felt 
himself  shocked  into  action.  The  very  atoms  of  his  body 
seemed  to  fall  asunder  and  rearrange  themselves  and,  as 
soon  as  he  could  decently  get  away,  without  throwing  the 
bewilderment  of  the  business  on  Anne,  he  had  gone,  and 
he  had  never  seen  her  again. 

He  had  written  to  her  faithfully,  and  with  the  com 
passion  that  was  either  natally  or  by  the  habit  of  life 
a  part  of  him,  but  he  had  not  obeyed  her.  For  she 
begged  him,  almost,  at  intervals,  commanded  him,  to 
return  to  work  with  her  for  the  peace  of  mankind.  At 
first  he  tried  to  explain  himself  and  assuage  her  grief 
over  what  she  called  his  desertion  of  their  common  ideals. 
He  answered  the  arguments  in  the  letters  that  had  become 
a  misery  to  him  to  receive  as  his  had  become  an  inexpressi 
ble  burden  to  write.  Finally,  with  a  wrench  to  himself, 
he  ceased,  and,  with  infinite  pains,  compiled  data  that 
might  interest  without  offending  her.  The  letters  con- 


OLD  CROW  43 

tinucd,  but  as  soon  as  he  found  she  was  sending  him 
abstractions  valueless  because  they  had  no  roots  in  the 
living  issues  of  things,  he  had  to  stop.  That,  not  her 
death,  had  been  their  lasting  farewell. 

What,  in  the  name  of  all  that  was  mysterious,  he 
reflected,  had  made  Anne — and  so  early — assume  the  bur 
den  of  an  unasked  allegiance  to  him?  His  family  and 
hers  had  been  next-door  neighbors  at  Wake  Hill,  but  on 
no  equality  of  worldly  footing.  The  Hamiltons,  thriv 
ing  on  wool,  had  been  able  to  buy  for  themselves  all  the 
picturesque  luxuries  of  civilized  life.  Their  women  toiled 
not.  Their  delicate  air  was  the  product  of  tuition  in 
dainty  ways.  Their  men  had  acquired  the  unconscious 
pose  of  dominance,  of  knowing  what  wras  their  due  and 
expecting  to  get  it  without  argument.  Sometimes  up 
there  at  Wake  Hill  they  did  receive  a  disconcerting  knock 
or  two  from  some  "embattled  farmer"  whom  they  called 
"my  man,"  and  who  didn't  like  the  sound  of  it.  But  the 
answering  rebuff  never  penetrated  the  fine  mail  of  their 
acquired  arrogance.  It  meant,  they  smilingly  said,  "New 
England,"  and  tolerantly  passed  it  by.  Raven's  people 
were  of  a  different  stripe,  "brainy,"  he  thought  with  an 
unspoken  pride  of  his  own,  yet  deficient  in  a  certain 
practical  quality  of  taking  the  world  "but  as  the  world," 
and  consequently  always  poor.  Their  ways  were  rougher 
ways.  Their  women  had  to  work  to  trim  the  edges  of 
their  plainer  surroundings  with  the  alleviating  prettinesses 
the  Hamiltons  cast  aside  with  every  changing  style.  And 
Anne,  coming  home  from  Europe  one  summer,  where  she 
had  not  only  seen  wonder  and  beauty,  already  familiar 
to  her — for  she  was  a  young  lady  then — and  where  he 
knew  she  had  met  men  and  women  whose  names  were 
trumpet  calls  in  his  ears — singled  him  out,  in  his  shyness 
and  obscurity,  and  offered  him  the  key  to  the  fulfilment 


44  OLD  CROW 

of  his  dreams.  Education,  travel,  the  life  of  books — all 
were  in  her  hand,  the  potential  fruit  of  her  father's  doting 
affection  for  her,  and  all  were  to  be  his.  What  could 
have  inspired  her  with  so  wholesale  and  fantastic  a  phil 
anthropy?  He  could  never  adequately  guess,  and  he  was 
no  nearer  doing  it  now  than  in  the  old  bewildering  days 
when  the  Hesperidean  apples  were  dropping  over  him 
and  he  was,  from  some  shy  instinct,  dodging  to  avoid 
them.  And  the  reason  he  had  never  guessed  and  never 
could  guess  was  that  he  left  out  of  all  the  data  at  his 
hand  the  one  first  moving  factor:  that  he  was  a  beautiful 
youth  and  Anne  had  imperiously  loved  him  and  had  never 
ceased  to  love. 

As  he  sat  there,  the  pen  lifted,  his  mind  going  back 
over  the  things  that  had  led  him  away  from  adventure 
into  wool,  and  were  now  leading  him  as  far  from  wool 
as  might  be,  he  was  tempted.  What  if,  in  spite  of  Nan, 
he  should  risk  it  and  tell  Dick,  once  for  all,  why  he  was 
going  away,  make  it  clear  so  there  should  be  no  after- 
persuasions,  no  clutter  of  half  understanding?  He  was 
tired  of  thinking  about  his  life  as  a  life.  The  tempta 
tion  to  such  morose  musing  had  come  upon  him  in  the  last 
six  months,  and  once  yielded  to,  he  felt  the  egotistical 
disease  of  it  through  his  very  blood  and  bones.  If  he 
were  Catholic,  he  could  confess  and  get  rid  of  it.  He 
was  not  Catholic,  only  pagan,  the  natural  man.  The 
Church  had  a  wisdom  of  her  own.  All  her  rites  and 
ceremonies  found  their  root  in  something  salutary  for 
the  human  mind.  Confession  was  salutary.  You  might 
not  be  absolved,  but  if  you  were  pagan  you  could  believe 
that  the  very  act  of  it  absolved  you.  Nan  said  Dick  never 
would  understand.  So  much  the  better.  Let  him  carry 
off  the  burden  of  it.  If  he  understood,  he'd  see  the 
extreme  sacredness  of  a  confidence  entrusted  to  him.  If 


OLD  CROW  45 

he  didn't,  he'd  hide  it  as  a  thing  you'd  better  say  as 
little  about  as  possible.  So  he  tucked  his  first  letter  into 
its  envelope  and  began  to  write  again,  with  no  date  and 
no  direct  address,  but  from  a  sense  that  it  was  going  to 
be  an  enormously  comforting  thing  to  do. 


"I  think  I'll  tell  you  the  real  reason  why  I'm  going 
to  Wake  Hill.  I've  told  you  I'm  going,  but  just  as  my 
nerves  move  the  muscles  that  move  my  legs  to  go,  so  my 
will  moves  my  nerves  and  the  me  that  is  inside  some 
where  and  is  a  perfect  stranger  to  you — and  also  to  the 
me  I  am  used  to  myself — moves  my  will.  You  see,  the 
me  inside  me  knows  there's  something  wrong.  Something 
mighty  bad — or  it  may  be  merely  inevitable — has  hap 
pened  to  me.  I  went  through  the  War  all  right,  on  a 
pretty  even  keel,  because  I  thought  I  saw  a  bright  light 
at  the  end.  I  thought  we  all  saw  the  light.  And  the 
light  wasn't  any  electric  signboard  out  to  say  there  never 
would  be  any  more  wars,  but  it  was  a  light  you  could 
see  to  read  by.  You  could  see  the  stars  and  see  them 
differently  from  the  old  way  we'd  been  seeing  them.  We 
could  see  the  moon  and  the  Milky  Way — but  I  suppose 
that  comes  under  stars — and  the  upshot  of  it  was  that 
we  thought  we  saw  God.  And  after  you'd  seen  God,  you 
knew  saying  there  shouldn't  be  any  more  war  was  only 
beginning  at  the  wrong  end  of  the  puzzle.  Of  course 
war  is  a  damnable  business,  perhaps  the  most  damnable 
we  go  into  because  it's  so  wholesale.  But  if  you  begin 
at  the  right  end  of  the  puzzle  and  not  the  wrong,  the 
thing  we  learn  is  that  the  only  reality  in  this  universe 
for  which  it's  worth  going  through  the  obscene  hells  of 
which  war  is  one,  is  God.  To  be  aware  of  Him,  not  to 
explain  Him.  You  can't  explain  Him.  You  can't  explain 

46 


OLD  CROW  47 

what  He's  done  to  you  or  means  to  do.     All  you  can  do 
is  to  keep  your  eye  on  Him  and  fall  in. 

"I  came  home.  I  was  rather  cracked,  when  I  got  here, 
I  was  so  pleased  with  my  little  plaything.  I'd  seen  God. 
I  was  only  one  of  a  good  many  millions  that  saw  Him. 
And  it  was  exactly  as  if  you  went  into  an  enchanter's 
cave  and  expected  to  find  some  dream  you'd  dreamed 
made  real,  and  all  you  found  was  the  Forty  Thieves  sit 
ting  there  counting  over  their  spoils.  No!  no!  it  isn't 
an  allegory.  I  don't  mean  America  and  profiteers.  I 
don't  mean  anybody  particularly.  But  it  began  to  come 
over  me  more  and  more  every  day  that  we  and  everybody 
else  on  the  round  world,  if  they  had  seen  God,  had  for 
gotten  all  about  it.  Just  as  the  old-fashioned  men  at 
Wake  Hill  used  to  read  their  Bible  Sunday  and  put  it 
away  on  the  parlor  table  with  the  album  and  go  out 
early  Monday  morning  to  carry  the  apples  to  market  all 
deaconed  on  top.  By  George !  we  were  the  same  old  lot. 
And  worse,  for  we'd  had  our  look  through  the  peep-hole 
into  eternities,  and  now  we  said,  'It  makes  my  eyes  ache. 
I'm  going  to  wear  a  shade.'  No,  son,  I  don't  mean  Leagues 
of  Nations  and  Internationalism  or  any  of  the  quack 
remedies.  I  mean  just  God.  We'd  been  badly  scared — 
Nan  said  so  to-day — and  we  got  down  on  our  knees  and 
howled  to  the  Highest  and  offered  Him  tribute. 

"Now  you  may  say  that  even  if  the  whole  world  had 
forgotten  God,  if  I'd  seen  Him  why  couldn't  I  still  remem 
ber  Him?  Why  couldn't  I  consider  the  millions  of  years 
that  go  to  the  making  of  man  and  do  my  little  bit  and 
wait  on  His  will?  Because  my  temptation  came  on  me. 
I  was  tempted  in  the  wilderness  of  my  own  credulity  and 
conceit.  For  I  looked  back  over  time  past  and  I  said 
like  Solomon — I  don't  know  whether  he  ever  said  it,  but 
he's  the  most  blase  Johnnie  I  remember — 'All  is  vanity.' 


48  OLD  CROW 

As  it  was  in  the  beginning,  so  it  ever  shall  be.  We  are 
not  made  in  the  image  of  God.  We  are  made  rather 
grotesquely  out  of  dust,  and  to  dust  we  shall  return,  all 
our  hopes,  all  our  aspirations,  all  the  pretty  plans  we 
form  for  defeating  death  and  time.  And  who  made  us 
and  put  us  on  this  dark  planet  where  it  is  next  to  impossi 
ble  to  see  a  step  before  us?  God.  Who  is  responsible 
for  us?  God.  Can  we  find  out  His  will?  Never.  Can 
we  hope  for  any  alleviation  of  misery  on  our  dark  planet? 
Never :  for  if  we  seek  out  many  inventions  to  down  disease 
and  poverty,  we  shall  unloose  as  many  by-products  of 
discovery  and  bring  new  plagues  upon  us.  And  so  I  had  to 
turn  away  from  God.  Do  you  see?  I  didn't  deny  He 
exists.  I  didn't  accuse  Him  of  bad  faith  to  us.  How 
can  He  show  either  good  faith  or  bad  when  He  has  made 
us  no  promises  ?  He  has  merely  set  us  on  the  dark  planet 
and  forced  us  to  whirl  with  it  on  the  wheel  of  time,  And 
so,  do  you  see,  having  turned  away  from  God — and  I  had 
to,  I  had  to  in  mere  honesty — I  simply  lost  Him.  And  hav 
ing  lost  Him,  there  is  nothing  left  to  lose.  Also,  having 
once  seen  Him  and  then  lost  Him,  I  can't  take  up  the  puz 
zle  again.  I  can't  play  the  game.  If  I  hadn't  what  we 
New  Englanders  call  common  sense,  I  suppose  I  should  put 
an  end  to  myself.  What  would  be  the  good?  He  would 
simply  catch  me,  like  a  rabbit  out  of  a  cage,  and  chuck  me 
back  again  on  the  dark  planet.  Don't  think  I  blame  Him. 
He  wouldn't  do  it  out  of  cruelty.  He'd  have  to  put  me 
back.  That's  the  way  His  laws  are  made.  So  I'm  going 
up  to  Wake  Hill  and  live  with  Charlotte  and  Jerry,  and 
see  if  I  can't  get  tired  enough  every  day  to  sleep  at  night. 
I  couldn't  keep  on  here.  I  couldn't.  What  we  call  civ 
ilization  is  too  sickening  to  me.  I  should  simply  go  off  my 
nut.  And  when  you  come  to  that,  it's  an  awful  complica- 


OLD  CROW  49 

tion,  besides  the  suffering  of  it.  That  I  shrink  from,  too. 
I'm  talking  a  good  deal,  but  actually  it's  the  thing  I 
least  want  to  do.  I  don't  want  a  fuss." 

Here  he  paused,  wondered  if  he  had  more  to  say,  think 
ing  Dick  must  be  unusually  dull,  even  for  a  poet,  if  he 
couldn't  understand  such  a  plain  state  of  things,  and  then 
took  an  irrational  satisfaction  in  carefully  folding  these 
List  pages  and  putting  them  in  the  envelope  with  what  he 
had  written  first.  He  addressed  the  envelope  to  Dick,  sealed 
and  weighed  it,  got  up  and  stretched  himself  and  felt  dis 
tinctly  better.  He  had,  in  a  way,  confessed,  and  it  was 
having  the  effect  on  him  he  had  so  sagely  anticipated.  He 
could  sleep  to-night.  And  he  did  sleep.  It  was  one  of  the 
nights  he  used  to  have  after  long  tramps  about  Wake  Hill, 
when  his  tired  leg>s  thrilled  deliciously  before  they  sank 
into  a  swoon  of  nothingness. 

In  the  morning,  he  leaped  the  chasm  from  four  to  six, 
a  wakeful  misery  of  late,  when  he  was  accustomed  to  go 
over  and  over  the  last  harassing  pages  in  his  book  of 
doubts.  He  did  not  wake  until  seven,  and  then  it  was  with 
a  clear-eyed  resumption  of  consciousness.  And  here  he 
was,  exactly  as  he  had  found  himself  on  other  mornings 
when  the  bath  of  oblivion  had  not  been  so  deep.  Here  was 
his  world,  the  world  he  was  trying  to  run  away  from,  wait 
ing  for  him  in  all  its  ordered  hostilities.  Immediately  it 
struck  him  full  in  the  center  that,  instead  of  having  some 
thing  less  to  brood  upon  by  reason  of  his  confession  to 
Dick,  he  had  saddled  himself  with  more.  He  had  the  letter 
itself  to  repent  of.  He  had  given,  not  his  unhappiness  but 
his  actual  self  away,  and,  no  matter  how  clearly  Dick  un 
derstood,  he  had  conjured  up  another  anguish  in  admitting 
to  his  disordered  inner  world  the  lenses  of  another  mind. 
This  was  only  a  matter  of  a  second's  disconcerting 


50  OLD  CROW 

thought.  It  was  also  immediately  clear  to  him  that  the 
letter  must  not  go,  and  he  spoke  from  his  bedside  to  the 
kitchen  and  gave  orders  that  nothing  should  be  mailed 
until  he  came  down.  A  contrite  voice  replied.  The  letters 
were  mailed:  that  is,  the  thick  one  on  the  library  table. 
Mary  had  gone  in  last  night  to  lock  the  windows,  and 
saw  it,  and  knew  he  had  forgotten  to  leave  it  in  the  hall. 
He  often  did  forget.  It  was  stamped  and  sealed.  And  the 
furnace  man  came  then.  'Raven  thought  he  might,  in  an 
other  minute,  be  groaning  into  her  sympathetic  ear;  so  he 
shut  her  up  with  an  assurance  that  it  was  all  right.  But 
he  felt  the  swreat  start  on  his  forehead  at  the  picture  of 
Dick  sitting  down  to  breakfast — Dick  always  ordered  a 
big  breakfast,  having  a  hunter's  appetite  and  a  general 
impression  that,  the  more  he  nourished  himself,  the  more 
manly  it  would  make  his  nose — and  poring  over  the  fable 
of  his  uncle's  soul,  or  what  seemed  to  be  his  soul,  with  eyes 
strained  to  their  limit  of  credulity.  However,  it  was  of 
no  use.  Nothing  was  of  any  use  when  destiny  had  one  of 
those  ironic  fits  of  hers  and  sat  down  to  make  a  caricature 
of  you,  just  for  the  fun  of  bursting  her  old  sides  over  it. 
He  dressed  in  a  dogged  haste,  wondering  if  he'd  better 
telephone  Dick  and  ask  him  not  to  open  any  letter  he  might 
have  from  him  that  morning,  and  then  dismissing  it,  because 
it  had  assuredly  been  received  and  Dick  was  now  absorb 
ing  it  with  his  chops  and  eggs. 

Raven  went  down  to  his  own  eggs  in  a  grim  and  sulky 
frame  of  mind.  He  would  repudiate  the  letter,  if  need  be, 
tell  Dick  it  was  only  something  he  had  written  as  a  literary 
experiment  and  thought  he'd  try  it  on  the  dog.  But  the 
moment  he  heard  the  boy's  key  in  the  door  and  then  his 
step  through  the  hall,  he  knew  he  could  not,  for  some  unex 
plained  reason  inherent  in  his  own  frame  of  mind,  "put  it 
over."  It  was  as  if  Dick  represented  the  universe  Raven 


OLD  CROW  51 

was  arraigning,  was  counsel  for  it,  so  to  speak,  and  Raven 
had  got,  in  sheer  decency  of  honor,  to  stand  to  his  guns. 
But  it  was  all  worse  than  he  thought.  Dick's  entrance  was 
so  quick,  his  onslaught  so  unstudied,  his  glance  so  full  of 
alarmed  commiseration,  that  Raven  saw  at  once  he  had 
been  shocked  out  of  all  manly  proprieties.  Dick  caught  at 
a  chair,  on  the  way  to  the  table,  brought  it  with  him  and, 
placing  it  at  a  near  angle  to  Raven's,  dropped  into  it  as  if 
exhausted. 

"I'd  no  idea,"  he  began,  "why,  I'd  no  more  idea " 

Raven's  hand  tightened  on  his  fork.  Then  he  laid  the 
fork  down,  for,  after  all,  he  had  finished  breakfast,  and 
might  as  well  make  the  most  of  running  his  hands  into  his 
pockets  and  shutting  them  there. 

"Morning,  Dick,"  he  said.  "Have  in  some  toast  and 
eggs?" 

Dick,  in  no  mind  even  to  weigh  the  significance  of  toast 
and  eggs,  was  staring  at  him.  He  was  cheated  by  a  pov 
erty  of  words  when  he  most  needed  them,  and  could  only 
repeat : 

"I  hadn't  the  least  idea.  I  tell  you  it  never  occurred 
to  me.  I  don't  believe  it  did  to  Nan,  either." 

"What?"  asked  Raven.  "What  is  it  that  didn't  occur 
to  you?" 

"I  did  think  of  it  when  you  first  spoke  of  going  to 
France,  you  know,"  said  Dick,  in  a  justification  of  himself 
that  seemed  more  for  his  own  ease  than  Raven's.  "I  didn't 
believe  you  could  pull  it  off,  a  man  of  your  years.  You 
took  it  so  easy !  You  never  turned  a  hair.  But  I  might 
have  known  you'd  have  to  pay  for  it  afterward." 

"What  is  it  I've  taken  so  admirably?"  asked  Raven. 
"What  is  it  I've  got  to  pay  for?" 

"Why,"  said  Dick,  "your  slogging  over  there — a  man 
of  your  age 


52  OLD  CROW 

"Well,"  said  Raven  curtly,  cracking  his  voice  at  him  in 
a  way  Dick  had  never  had  to  take  from  him,  "how  is  it  I'm 
paying?  What's  the  matter  with  me?" 

"Why,"  said  Dick,  in  a  perfect  innocence  of  any  offense 
in  it,  "don't  you  know?  You've  seen  enough  of  it.  I 
should  think  you'd  be  the  first  to  know." 

Raven  simply  looked  at  him.  Dick  had  a  feeling  that 
his  uncle  was  about  to  roar  out  something,  and  braced 
himself  for  the  unbelievable  event.  However,  it  would 
not  surprise  him.  That,  he  knew,  was  a  part  of  it.  But 
Raven  was  putting  his  question  again,  smoothly  and  tol 
erantly,  as  if  to  assure  him  there  was  time  enough  to  make 
a  well  considered  reply: 

"Just  what,  in  your  opinion,  is  the  matter  with  me?" 

"Why,"  said  Dick,  that  innocent  gaze  still  upon  him, 
"shell  shock." 

Raven  jumped.  Every  nerve  in  him  seemed  to  give  a 
little  twitch  of  pure  surprise  with  every  other. 

"O  Lord !"  said  he.  "Who  could  ever  have  expected 
that?  It's  worse  than  I  thought." 

"Why,  it's  no  disgrace,"  Dick  assured  him  eagerly. 
"Think  how  many  fellows  have  had  it.  They  haven't  got 
over  it.  They're  having  it  now.  The  only  thing  to  do  is 
to  recognize  it  and  put  yourself  under  treatment." 

"That'll  do,"  said  Raven,  with  a  determined  calm. 
"Your  diagnosis  has  gone  far  enough.  And  now  I  shall 
have  to  ask  you  to  do  two  things  for  me." 

"Two!"  Dick  echoed,  and  Raven,  though  at  the  end  of 
his  patience,  was  touched  to  see  the  suffused  look  of  the 
boy's  eyes.  "You  needn't  cut  it  down  to  two.  Just  you 
tell  me " 

There,  though  he  was  poetically  eloquent  and  diffuse  in 
print,  he  stopped  and  could  literally  say  no  more  without 
an  emotion  he  considered  unworthy  of  him. 


OLD  CROW  53 

"Two  things,"  said  Raven.  "One  is  to  forget  every 
blamed  word  of  the  screed  I  was  jackass  enough  to  send 
you.  The  other  is  to  give  me  your  word  you  won't  men 
tion  it,  even  to  me.  Oh,  there's  another  thing.  Go  home 
and  burn  the  thing  up." 

Dick's  eyes  were  all  a  wild  apprehension. 

"Oh,"  said  he,  "I  can't  burn  it.     I  haven't  got  it." 

"You  haven't  it?    Who  has?" 

"Nobody— not  yet." 

"Oh,  then  you've  destroyed  it  already." 

"No,"  said  Dick  miserably.     "I've  sent  it  off." 

"Who  to?     Nan?" 

"No.    Mother." 

Raven  could  hardly  believe  him.  He  did  not  remember 
any  illuminating  confidences  from  Dick  on  the  subject  of 
mother,  but  he  made  no  doubt  the  boy  looked  upon  her  as 
he  did,  as  a  force  too  eccentrically  irresponsible  to  be 
unloosed. 

"Well !"  he  said.  The  state  of  things  struck  him  as  too 
bad  to  be  taken  otherwise  than  calmly.  You  couldn't 
spend  on  it  the  amount  of  emotion  it  deserved,  so  you 
might  as  well  get  the  credit  with  yourself  and  your  an 
tagonist  of  an  attack  unexpectedly  gentle.  "Now,  what 
did  you  think  you  were  doing  when  you  sent  it  off  to  your 
mother?" 

"Uncle  Jack,"  said  Dick,  rather  awkwardly  blundering 
about  his  mental  armory  for  some  reasonable  defense, 
"she's  your  sister." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "Milly  is  my  sister.     What  then?" 

"Then,  why,  then,"  said  Dick,  "when  a  thing  like  this 
happens  to  you,  she'd  feel  it,  wouldn't  she?" 

"You're  perfectly  sure  you  know  what  has  happened  to 
me?  You  trust  your  own  diagnosis?" 

"Of  course  I  trust  it,"  Dick  burst  forth.     "Your  letter 


54  OLD  CROW 

— why,  jour  letter  isn't  normal.  Shell  shock's  a  perfectly 
legitimate  thing.  You  know  it  is.  You're  just  the  one  to 
be  hit.  You  did  perfectly  crazy  things  over  there,  en 
tirely  beyond  any  man  of  your  years.  And  I'm  mighty 
thankful  we  can  put  our  finger  on  it.  For  if  it  isn't  shell 
shock,  it's  something  worse." 

"You  mean,"  said  Raven,  "I've  gone  off  my  nut." 

Dick  did  not  answer,  but  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  his 
own  mental  excitement,  and  he  was  apprehensive  in  a  meas 
ure  that  moved  Raven  to  an  amused  compassion.  Raven 
sat  looking  at  him  a  long  minute.  Then  he  got  up  and 
took  his  newspaper  from  the  table  beside  him. 

"Come,"  he  said.  "We'll  go  into  the  library  and  see 
if  we  can  get  anywhere." 

Dick  followed  him,  and  they  sat  down  together  by  the 
fire,  this  after  Raven  had  moved  a  third  chair  into  the 
space  between  them.  He  smiled  at  himself  as  he  did  it. 
It  was  the  chair  Nan  had  sat  in  the  night  before.  He  had 
a  foolish  feeling  that  he  was  invoking  her  remembered 
presence,  calling  on  her  to  help  them  out. 

"Now,  Dick,"  he  began,  when  they  were  seated,  "you 
said  something  about  my  letter's  not  being  normal.  What 
is  normal,  when  you  come  to  that?" 

Dick  frowned  into  the  fire.  This,  ne  felt,  had  some  hid 
den  leading,  and  he  wasn't  going  to  be  caught. 

"What's  the  use  of  asking  fool  questions?"  he  inquired, 
in  his  turn.  "You  know." 

"Can't  help  it,"  said  Raven.  "I've  got  to  be  Socratic. 
Help  me  out,  old  man.  Let  me  have  my  little  game. 
What  is  normal?" 

"Why,"  said  Dick,  floundering,  "I  suppose  it's  what 
the  general  run  of  people  think — and  do.  It's  keeping 
to  the  rules.  It's  trotting  on  the  course.  It  isn't  going 
off  at  some  tangent  of  your  own." 


OLD  CROW  55 

Dick  felt  rather  proud  of  this,  its  fluency  and  general 
appositeness.  He  plucked  up  his  spirits,  thinking  he 
might  be  going  to  manage  Raven,  after  all. 

"Now,  see  here,"  said  Raven,  suddenly  leaning  forward 
and  looking  at  him  in  the  friendliest  community  of  feeling, 
"it  means  a  good  deal  when  a  fellow  of  my  years,  as  you 
say,  gets  a  biff  that  sends  him  staggering." 

"Just  what  I  said,"  Dick  assured  him.  "It's  mighty 
serious.  It's  awful." 

"Has  it  occurred  to  you,"  said  Raven,  "that  I  may  be 
right?" 

"Right?     How  right?" 

Thereupon  question  and  answer  piled  up  fast. 

"I've  indicted  the  universe,  as  it  were.  How  can  you 
prove  the  universe  hasn't  laid  herself  open  to  it?  How 
do  you  know  the  indictment  of  the  creature  she  made  and 
then  ground  under  her  heel  isn't  the  very  thing  she's  been 
waiting  for  all  these  millions  of  years?" 

"Oh,  come,  Jack !  the  universe  hasn't  been  waiting  for 
you.  That's  a  part  of  it,  don't  you  see?  You've  got 
delusions,  delusions  of  greatness,  delusions " 

"Shut  up.  Don't  use  your  spurious  jargon  on  me. 
Just  answer  my  questions.  How  do  you  know  it  isn't 
the  healthiest  thing  that  ever  happened  in  this  rotten 
tissue  of  pretense  we  call  civilization  for  even  one  man — 
just  one — to  get  up  and  swear  at  the  whole  system  and 
swear  again  that,  so  far  as  his  little  midge's  existence 
goes,  he  won't  subscribe  to  it?  What  business  have  you 
to  call  that  disease?  How  do  you  know  it  isn't  health? 
How  do  you  know  I'm  not  one  of  the  few  normal  atoms 
in  the  whole  blamed  carcass?" 

Dick  felt  himself  profoundly  shocked.  He  was  having 
to  reverse  his  conclusions.  Uncle  Jack  had  stood  for  a 
well  ordered  sanity,  conversant  with  wool  and  books  and 


56  OLD  CROW 

mysteriously  devoted  to  Miss  Anne  Hamilton,  whose  con 
ventional  perfections  evidently  held  within  their  limit 
Uncle  Jack's  highest  ideals.  Uncle  Jack  had  shown  a 
neat  talent  with  his  pen.  He  had  grown  middle-aged  at 
an  imperceptible  and  blameless  pace,  and  now  he  was  rag 
ing  about  like  a  sort  of  cave  man  with  nothing  less  than 
the  universe  to  bound  his  wild  leaps  and  curvetings. 

"But  you  know,  Jack,"  he  remonstrated  feebly,  "there 
isn't  anything  new  in  saying  the  nation's  going  to  the 
dogs.-  The  Britishers  say  it,  we  say  it " 

"I  don't  say  it,"  Raven  asserted.  "We're  not  going  to 
the  dogs.  We've  gone.  We're  there.  We're  the  dogs 
ourselves,  and  nothing  worse  could  happen  to  a  criminal 
—from  Mars,  for  example — than  to  be  sent  to  us.  We 
ought  to  be  the  convict  colony  of  the  universe." 

"Don't,"  said  Dick,  with  an  affectionate  sweetness  as 
exasperating  as  it  was  moving.  "It  only  excites  you. 
Come  on  out  and  have  a  tramp.  We  could  motor  out 
to " 

"O  Lord  !"  groaned  Raven.  "Why  don't  you  beguile 
me  up  to  the  Psychopathic?" 

Then  he  was,  for  the  first  time,  aghast  at  what  he  had 
set  going.  Dick  was  looking  at  him  again  with  that  suf 
fused  glance  of  an  affection  too  great  to  mind  disclosing 
itself  in  all  its  pathetic  abnegation. 

"I  couldn't  say  it  myself,"  he  began  brokenly.  "But 
you've  said  it ;  you  see  yourself.  If  you  would 

There  he  stopped  and  Raven  sat  staring  at  him.  He 
felt  as  if  the  words  had  got  inside  his  body  and  were 
somehow  draining  his  heart.  When  he  spoke,  his  voice 
sounded  hoarse  in  his  own  ears. 

"Dick,  old  man,"  he  said,  "I'm  not— that." 

"No !  no !"  Dick  hastened  to  assure  him,  and  somehow 
his  hand  had  found  Raven's  and  gripped  it.  "Only — O 


OLD  CROW  57 

good  God!"  he  ended,  and  got  out  of  his  chair  and 
turned  his  back. 

Raven,  too,  rose. 

"Dick,"  said  he  quietly,  "you  go  home  now.  And  don't 
you  speak  about  this  to  anybody,  not  to  Nan  even.  You 
understand." 

Dick  nodded,  still  with  his  back  turned,  and  got  out  of 
the  room,  and  Raven  thought  he  must  have  caught  at 
his  hat  in  the  hall,  and  made  one  stride  for  the  door. 
The  door  banged  and  Raven  was  alone. 


VI 


The  next  day  Nan  telephoned  Raven  that  she  was  tak 
ing  train  for  New  York  for  perhaps  a  week's  stay  with 
the  Seaburys.  These  were  her  nearest  relatives,  cousins 
at  a  remove  Raven  never  really  untangled,  and  of  late 
they  had  been  spending  persuasive  energy  in  trying  to 
induce  her  to  live  with  them.  Since  she  had  come  home 
from  France  and  Aunt  Anne  had  died,  they  were  always 
descending  upon  her  for  brief  visits  in  the  house  where 
she  succeeded  Aunt  Anne,  and  liking  her  so  tumultuously, 
in  her  grown-up  state,  that  they  pelted  her  with  arguments 
based  on  her  presumable  loneliness  there  and  the  silliness 
of  carrying  on  the  establishment  really  as  a  species  of 
home  for  superannuated  servants.  Nan  honestly  liked 
the  cousins,  in  a  casual  way,  though  it  was  as  inconceiv 
able  to  her  that  the  Boston  house  might  be  given  up  as 
it  would  have  been  to  Aunt  Anne.  There  was,  she  felt, 
again  in  Aunt  Anne's  way,  a  certain  continuity  of  things 
you  didn't  even  think  of  breaking.  Now  she  was  seeking 
the  Seaburys  for  reasons  of  her  own.  They  had  to  be 
suitably  told  that  Aunt  Anne  had  left  her  money  away 
from  them  as  from  her,  and  naturally,  though  ridiculously, 
to  "that  Raven  she  was  always  making  a  fool  of  herself 
about."  They  were  ruthless  of  speech  within  family  con 
clave,  though  any  one  of  them  would  have  thought  more 
than  twice  about  calling  Aunt  Anne  any  sort  of  fool, 
in  her  lifetime,  even  at  a  distance  safely  beyond  hear- 

58 


OLD  CROW  59 

ing.  Raven  was  not,  if  Nan  could  forestall  the  possi 
bility,  to  be  assaulted  by  mounting  waves  of  family  ani 
mosity. 

Raven  was  glad,  for  once,  to  get  rid  of  her,  to  find  she 
was  removing  herself  from  the  domestic  turmoil  he  had 
created.  There  could  not  be  the  triangular  discussions 
inevitable  if  she  and  Dick  fell  upon  him  at  once,  nor  should 
he  have  to  bear  the  warmth  of  her  tumultous  sympathy. 
Dick  had  evidently  told  her  nothing,  and  he  even  gath 
ered  that  she  was  going  without  notice  to  Dick.  Then 
Raven  began  a  systematic  and  rapid  onslaught  on  his  im 
mediate  affairs,  to  put  them  in  order.  Mr.  Whitney, 
Anne's  lawyer,  who  had  always  seemed  to  regard  him  in  a 
disconcerting  way  as  belonging  to  Anne,  or  her  belonging 
in  some  undefined  fashion  to  him,  opened  out  expansively 
on  the  provisions  of  the  will.  He  most  sincerely  congrat 
ulated  Raven.  Of  course  it  was  to  have  been  expected, 

but !    Raven  kept  miserably  to  the  proprieties  of  the 

moment.  He  listened  with  all  due  reserve,  silent  on  the 
subject  of  Anne's  letter.  That  was  his  affair,  he  thought, 
his  and  Nan's ;  unless,  indeed,  it  was  nobody's  affair  but 
Anne  Hamilton's,  and  he  was  blindly  to  constitute  him 
self  the  unreasoning  agent  of  her  trust.  That  must  be 
thought  out  later.  If  he  undertook  it  now,  piling  it  on 
the  pack  of  unsubstantial  miseries  he  was  carrying,  he 
would  be  swamped  utterly.  He  could  only  drop  it  into 
a  dark  pocket  of  his  mind  where  an  ill-assorted  medley  of 
dreads  and  fear  lay  waiting — for  what?  For  a  future  less 
confusing  than  this  inscrutable  present?  At  least,  they 
could  not  be  even  glanced  at  now.  He  wrote  Charlotte 
and  Jerry,  his  caretakers  on  the  place  at  Wake  Hill, 
that  he  was  coming  for  an  indefinite  stay.  He  instructed 
his  housekeeper  in  Boston  that  the  house  was  to  be  kept 
open ;  possibly  Mr.  Richard  would  be  there  a  good  deal. 


60  OLD  CROW 

Then  he  sat  down  to  write  his  sister.  That  was  the  prob 
lem:  what  should  he  say  to  her  who  would  presently  be 
receiving  his  unfortunate  screed  with  some  inflammatory 
introduction  from  Dick  and  would — he  knew  her! — 
scarcely  have  finished  it  before  she  took  steps  toward 
flooding  him  with  epistolary  advice  and  comment.  He 
could  see  her  now  at  her  desk,  assembling  data  of  conduct, 
bodily  well-being,  and  putting  it  all  down  in  that  master 
ful  hand  of  hers.  That  settled  it.  He  mustn't  write  her. 
He  must  telegraph  and  forestall  Dick.  And  he  did  tele 
graph  her,  on  the  moment,  a  message  of  noncommittal 
brevity : 

"Letter  Dick  sent  you  is  all  poppycock.     Forget  it." 

That  might,  he  concluded,  yet  without  hope,  keep  her 
from  rushing  her  pen  to  the  rescue,  even  if  it  did  not  pre 
vent  her  fuming.  And  as  he  sat  at  the  library  table  with  a 
disorder  of  papers  before  him,  Dick  appeared  at  the  door: 
good  boy,  full  of  zeal  and  pity.  He  looked  so  overflowing 
with  honest  affection,  so  eagerly  ready  to  help  that  Raven 
exasperatedly  loved  him  for  his  kind  officiousness.  Yet 
he  had  nothing  for  him  but  a  gruff: 

"Now  what  do  you  think  you're  here  for?" 
.    Dick  was  prepared  for  repulse,  this  or  any  other.     He 
had  armed  himself  against  all  possible  whims  and  obsti 
nacies,  and  he  wore  the  air  of  a  carefully  adjusted  pa 
tience. 

"Can't  I  help  there?"  he  inquired,  advancing  to  the 
table  and  drawing  up  a  chair.  "Couldn't  you  let  me  run 
over  those  and  just  tell  you  what  they  are?" 

"You  go  to  thunder,"  said  Raven,  rapidly  assorting, 
clapping  into  bundles  and  casting  aside.  "Yes,  you  can, 
too.  Take  this  basket  and  empty  it  into  the  fireplace. 
Behind  the  log  and  smash  it  down  so  it  won't  set  the  chim 
ney  afire.  Remember  how  your  grandmother  used  to  keep 


OLD  CUOVV  61 

a  scare  going  all  the  time  for  fear  of  chimneys?  I  guess 
I've  inherited  it.  I  have  to  use  the  formula." 

Dick  emptied  the  papers  with  a  grave  care  foreign  to 
him,  as  if  even  so  small  a  service,  at  such  a  moment,  bore 
a  weightier  meaning,  and  brought  the  basket  back.  He 
sat  down  and  waited  in  a  silence  Raven  felt  more  por 
tentously  vocal  than  the  loudest  outcry. 

"Dick !"  he  said.  He  stopped  work  and  looked  at  the 
youth,  an  unwilling  smile  twisting  his  mouth.  He  was  not 
sure  of  its  being-  well  to  take  it  humorously;  yet  it  was 
funny.  "Dick,  if  you've  got  anything  to  say,  say  it.  If 
you  haven't,  clear  out.  This  is  my  busy  day." 

Dick  shook  his  head  despairingly  and  yet  obstinately. 
He  wasn't  going  to  leave  Uncle  Jack  to  the  powers  of 
darkness. 

"Just  tell  me  what  you're  winding  things  up  for?"  he 
ventured.  "I  ought  to  know." 

"Then  don't  ask  as  if  you  were  whispering  into  the  ear 
of  Buddha,  or  trying  not  to  wake  baby,"  said  Raven,  tear 
ing  a  package  of  letters  with  a  sudden  savage  haste. 
They  were  Anne's  letters  to  him  when  he  was  in  France, 
and  he  had  meant  to  keep  them  because  she  would  have  an 
ideal  of  the  sacredness  they  ought  to  bear,  and  exasperat- 
ingly  the  suggestion  seemed  to  include  a  power  of  impos 
ing  itself  on  him.  And  if  Dick  hadn't  come  in  to  bait 
him  with  irrelevant  questions,  his  perverse  inner  self  ex 
cused  itself,  he  might  not  be  defying  the  ideal  and  tearing 
the  letters  up.  As  it  was,  he  found  them  a  salutary 
sacrifice. 

"If  you  mean  my  going  to  Wake  Hill,  yes,  I'm  going. 
I've  written  Charlotte.  Or  rather  I've  addressed  it  to 
Jerry,  she's  so  careful  about  his  prerogative  as  a  male." 

"When?"  asked  Dick. 

"The  minute  I  get  some  boots  and  things  to  go  logging 


62  OLD  CROW 

in.  This  house  will  be  open.  You  can  come  in  and  roost 
if  you  want  to.  If  you  marry  Nan" — this  was  an 
audacity  that  occurred  to  him  at  the  moment.  It  sud 
denly  seemed  to  him  a  blessed  comfort  to  think  of  Nan  in 
his  house —  "you  can  come  here  and  live." 

Dick  lost  his  sacrificial  air  and  turned  sulky. 

"I  don't  know  about  Nan,"  he  said.  "I  never  know 
about  her,  not  since  we've  come  back.  She  was  soft  as 
—as  silk  over  there." 

"The  maternal,"  said  Raven  briefly,  tearing  one  of 
Anne's  letters,  with  a  crack,  across  the  pages.  "It  was 
what  you  needed  to  keep  you  going.  Not  personal,  only 
because  you  were  a  sojer  boy." 

The  mortification  of  it  all,  the  despite  of  not  holding 
his  own  with  her  now  he  was  not  serving  a  cause,  was 
plainly  evident  in  Dick's  face.  He  had  had  a  bad  night 
of  it,  after  Nan's  flouting  and  Uncle  Jack's  letter  on  top 
of  that. 

"She  was  beastly,"  he  said,  with  no  further  elabora^ 
tion. 

But  Raven  knew  he  was  returning  to  his  walk  home 
with  her  and  some  disconcerting  circumstances  of  it.  No 
doubt  Nan  had  been  ruthless.  Pier  mind  had  been  on  Aunt 
Anne  and  the  Palace  of  Peace.  Little  boys  in  love 
couldn't  joggle  her  fighting  arm  and  expect  to  escape 
irritated  reproof. 

"Nan's  got  a  good  deal  to  think  of  just  now,"  he  said. 
"Besides,  you  may  not  be  man  enough  for  her  yet.  Nan's 
very  much  of  a  woman.  She'll  expect  things." 

Dick  sat -glowering. 

"I'm  as  much  of  a  man  as  I  was  in  France,"  he  said 
obstinately.  "More.  I'm  older."  Then  his  sacrificial 
manner  came  back,  and,  remembering  what  he  was  there 
for,  he  resumed,  fill  humble  sweetness,  like  the  little  Dick 


OLD  CROW  63 

who  used  to  climb  on  Raven's  knee  and  ask  for  a  tell- 
story  *  "I'm  going  down  with  you.  I've  made  all  my 
plans." 

Raven  looked  up  at  him  in  a  new  surprise. 

"The  deuce  you  are,"  said  he.  "No,  you're  not,  boy. 
If  I  catch  you  down  there  I'll  play  the  game  as  you've 
mapped  it  out  for  me.  I'll  grab  Jerry's  axe  or  pitchfork 
and  run  amuck,  blest  if  I  don't.  You'll  wake  up  and  find 
yourself  sending  for  the  doctor." 

Glancing  cheerfully  up,  he  was  instantly  aware,  from 
the  boy's  unhappy  face,  that  Dick  believed  him.  Raven 
burst  into  a  laugh,  but  he  quickly  sobered.  What  a 
snare  they  were  getting  themselves  into,  and  only  by  an 
impish  destiny  of  haphazard  speech. 

"Don't  look  so  shocked,  Dickie,"  he  said  flippantly. 
"I'm  no  more  dotty  than — Hamlet." 

There  he  stopped  again  to  wonder  whimsically  at  the 
ill  fate  of  it  all.  For  Hamlet  was  mad;  at  least,  Dick 
thought  so.  He  couldn't  have  caught  at  anything  more 
injurious  to  his  cause. 

"  'They  fool  me  to  the  top  of  my  bent,'  "  he  reflected 
ruefully. 

That  was  what  Dick  was  ready  to  do.  But  sister 
Amelia  wouldn't  fool  him,  if  she  got  East  with  her  emerg 
ency  dressing  bag  and  her  perfectly  equipped  energy. 
She  would  clap  him  into  the  Psychopathic  before  he  had 
time  for  even  half  as  much  blank  verse  as  Hamlet  had. 
They  wouldn't  allow  him  a  first  act. 

"Don't  look  like  that,"  he  suggested  again  and  kindly, 
because  it  was  evident  that,  however  irritating  Dick  might 
be  as  a  prospective  guardian,  he  was  actually  suffering 
an  honest  misery. 

"I  don't,"  said  Dick.  "I  mean,  I  don't  mean  to  look 
different.  But  somehow  it's  got  me,  this  whole  business 


64  OLD  CROW 

has,  and  I  can't  get  away  from  it.  I've  thought  of  it 
every  minute  since  you  told  me.  It  isn't  so  much  you  I'm 
thinking  about.  It's  him." 

Raven,  as  a  writer  of  English,  paused  to  make  a  mental 
note  that,  in  cases  of  extreme  emotion,  the  nominative 
case,  after  the  verb  to  be,  is  practically  no  good.  You 
simply  have  to  scrap  it. 

"Who?"  he  inquired,  in  the  same  line  of  natural  lan 
guage. 

"Old  Crow." 

Dick  uttered  the  name  in  a  low  and  hesitating  tone.  He 
seemed  to  offer  it  unwillingly.  Raven  stared  at  him  in  a 
perfect  surprise,  now  uncolored  by  any  expectation  he 
might  have  had  of  what  was  coming. 

"Old  Crow?"  he  repeated.  "What  do  you  know  about 
Old  Crow?" 

"Well,"  said  Dick,  defensively,  "I  know  as  much  as 
you  do.  That  is,  I  suppose  I  do.  I  know  as  much  as  all 
Wake  Hill  does,  anyway." 

"Who  told  you?" 

"Mother.     I  didn't  suppose  it  was  any  secret." 

"No,"  said  Raven  thoughtfully,  "it's  no  secret.  Only 
he  was  queer,  he  was  eccentric,  and  so  I've  always  assumed 
he  had  a  pretty  bad  time  of  it.  That's  why  I  never've 
talked  about  him." 

"Mother  did,"  said  Dick,  in  a  sudden  expansion.  It 
seemed  to  ease  him  up  a  little,  this  leading  Raven  to  the 
source  of  his  own  apprehension.  Indeed,  he  had  felt,  since 
Raven's  letter,  that  they  must  approach  the  matter  of  his 
tired  wits  with  clearness,  from  the  scientific  standpoint. 
The  more  mental  facts  and  theories  they  recognized  the 
better.  "She  told  me  once  you  looked  just  like  him,  that 
old  daguerreotype." 

"Had    sister   Amelia    concluded    from    that,"    inquired 


OLD  CROW  65 

Raven  quietly,  "that  -I  was  bound  to  follow  Old  Crow, 
live  in  the  woods  and  go  missionarying  across  the  moun 
tain?" 

"No,"  said  Dick,  so  absorbed  in  his  line  of  argument 
that  he  was  innocently  unaware  of  any  intended  irony. 
"She  just  happened  to  speak  of  it  one  day  when  we  found 
the  daguerreotype.  Uncle  Jack,  just  what  do  you  know 
about  him?" 

Raven  considered  a  moment.  He  was  scanning  his  mem 
ory  for  old  impressions  and  also,  in  his  mild  surprise  over 
the  pertinency  of  reviving  them,  wondering  whether  he 
had  better  pass  them  on.  Or  would  they  knot  another 
tangle  in  the  snarl  he  and  Dick  seemed  to  be,  almost  with 
out  their  volition,  making? 

"Old  Crow,"  he  began  slowly,  "was  my  great-uncle. 
His  name  was  John  Raven.  He  was  poor,  like  all  the 
rest  of  us  of  that  generation  and  the  next,  and  did  the 
usual  things  to  advance  himself,  the  things  in  successful 
men's  biographies.  He  studied  by  the  kitchen  fire,  not 
by  pine  knots,  I  fancy — that  probably  was  the  formula 
of  a  time  just  earlier.  Anyhow  he  fitted  himself  for  the 
college  of  the  day,  for  some  reason  never  went,  but  did  go 
into  a  lawyer's  office  instead,  was  said  to  have  trotted 
round  after  a  gypsy  sort  of  girl  the  other  side  of  the 
mountain,  found  she  was  no  good,  went  up  into  the  woods 
and  built  the  old  hut  I  got  into  shape  in  the  spring  of 
1914.  Queer!  I  expected  to  go  up  there  to  study  and 
write.  I'd  got  to  the  point,  I  s'pose,  where  I  thought 
if  I  had  a  different  place  to  write  in  I  could  write  better. 
Sure  sign  of  waning  powers !  Well,  he  lived  there  by  him 
self,  and  folks  thought  he  was  queer  and  began  to  cal] 
him  Old  Crow.  I  saw  him  several  times  when  I  was  a 
little  chap,  never  alone.  Father  took  me  with  him  when 
he  went  up  to  the  hut  to  carry  food.  Mother  never 


66  OLD  CROW 

approved  of  my  going.  She  disapproved  of  it  so  much 
that  father  stopped  taking  me." 

"Well,  you  saw  him,"  said  Dick,  in  a  way  of  holding 
him  to  his  narrative,  so  that  Raven,  wondering  why  it 
was  of  such  importance,  bent  a  frowning  look  on  him. 

"Yes,  I  saw  him.  And  he  was  nice  to  me,  uncommon 
nice.  He  put  his  hand  on  my  shoulder  and  looked  down 
at  me  in  a  way — well,  not  the  patronizing,  grown-up  way, 
but  as  if,  now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  as  if  he  pitied  me." 

"How  did  he  look?" 

Dick  was  catching  at  things,  Raven  saw,  the  slightest 
clue  to  Old  Crow's  withdrawn  personality.  He  seemed, 
on  his  side,  to  be  constructing  a  portrait.  Raven  sought 
about  in  the  closed  chambers  of  his  mind  and  produced 
one  significant  bit  of  remembrance  after  another.  They 
were  retrieved  with  difficulty  out  of  the  disorder  of  things 
regarded  as  of  no  importance ;  but  here  they  were. 

"He  was  tall,  thin,  rather  hatchet- faced,  something  as 
I  am.  Oh,  you  knew  that,  didn't  you?  No  beard,  and  I 
think  he  was  the  neatest  person  I  ever  saw.  Father  was 
clean  shaven,  you  remember;  but  there  were  days  when 
he  either  got  lazy  or  was  too  busy  to  shave.  I  remember 
how  exquisitely  nice  and  peeled  his  face  used  to  look  on 
Sunday.  But  Old  Crow  was  shaved  all  the  time,  judging 
from  the  way  he  looked  the  few  times  I  saw  him.  I've 
heard  father  and  mother  speak  of  it,  too.  Charlotte  told 
me  once  she'd  seen  him  and  he  was  neat  as  a  new  pin." 

"How  old  was  he  when  he  went  up  there  into  the 
woods  ?" 

"To  live  alone?  I  don't  know.  Forty,  maybe.  Com 
paratively  young,  anyway." 

"Was  it  the  woman  ?  Was  there  a  cause  for  it,  a  cause 
people  knew?" 

"There  wasn't  any  cause  I  knew.     He  simply,  so  far  as 


OLD  CROW  67 

I  ever  heard,  passed  the  place  over  to  father — that  was 
his  nephew,  you  know — and  went  up  the  hill  and  built 
himself  a  log  hut.  It  was  well  built.  1  only  had  to  calk 
it  some  more  and  put  in  another  flooring  when  I  came 
into  it." 

As  Raven  went  on,  he  became  uncomfortably  aware  of 
the  resemblance  between  his  own  proposed  withdrawal 
and  Old  Crow's ;  but  he  stuck  to  it  doggedly.  It  was  all 
playing  into  Dick's  hands  and  Amelia's,  assuming  he 
could  predicate  her  mind;  but  he  w^as  resolved  they 
shouldn't  have  it  all  their  own  way.  He  would  give  them 
every  last  straw  of  evidence,  and  it  should  do  them  no 
good  in  the  end.  There  was  a  bravado  about  it.  If  Dick, 
in  his  affectionate  virtue  and  Amelia  in  her  energy  of  well 
doing,  wanted  to  challenge  him  to  the  proof,  he'd  give 
them  a  pretty  tussle  for  it. 

"What  I  want  to  know  is,"  said  Dick,  "what  he  thought 
he  was  going  off  there  for?  Didn't  anybody  know?" 

"They  may  have,"  said  Raven.     "I  didn't  know." 

"And  he  lived  his  life  out  there,  till  he  died?" 

"Yes.  And  died  in  a  very  gentlemanly  fashion,  of  pneu 
monia,  and  was  found  in  a  dignified  position  on  his  bed, 
hands  folded,  and  everything  in  a  great  state  of  order,  as 
if  he'd  known  he  was  going  and  arranged  things  to  give 
as  little  trouble  as  he  could." 

"What  did  he  do  up  there  all  by  himself?  Read? 
Write?" 

"He  read  a  good  deal,  I  believe.  We  found  him  read 
ing  when  we  went  up." 

"What  sort  of  books?" 

"Oh,  hang  it,  Dick,"  said  Raven,  beginning  to  fidget 
under  examination,  "you're  district-attorneying  it  a  trifle 
too  much  to  interest  me.  I'm  getting  bored,  son.  This 
isn't  a  third  degree." 


68  OLD  CROW 

But  Dick  was  not  to  be  curbed  or  reasoned  with. 

"I  think,"  he  said,  "if  you  don't  mind,  we'd  better  talk 
it  out.  You  see  I  do  really  need  to  know  about  him,  and 
you're  the  only  one  that  can  tell  me.  Mother's  is  chiefly 
hearsay." 

"Fire  away,"  said  Raven  easily,  accepting  the  situa 
tion.  He  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  began  making  pat 
terns  on  the  block  of  paper  before  him  with  a  silver  dag 
ger  at  his  hand.  "What  is  it  you  want  to  know?" 

"Everything.  How  the  neighbors  regarded  him,  what 
they  said." 

"The  neighbors  didn't  regard  him  at  all,  in  your  sense. 
Don't  you  know  the  way  country  folks  have  of  passing 
over  the  most  eccentric  things  as  if  they're  all  in  the 
day's  work?  They  gossip  like  thunder,  and,  if  they  can 
whip  up  a  scandal,  they're  made.  But  they  never  seem 
so  awfully  shocked.  Perhaps  it's  because  they're  used  to 
the  plain  facts  of  life,  death,  birth,  madness,  suicide. 
Maybe  there's  a  sort  of  gauclierie  about  it.  There  are 
things  you're  shocked  about  that  you  wouldn't  dare  dis 
cuss  at  Cambridge  or  the  Club.  You'd  be  afraid  it  wasn't 
good  form.  Maybe  you  would  though,  now.  Sometimes 
I  forget  the  world's  moved  on  a  peg." 

"But  what  did  they  say?" 

"Can't  tell  you,  Dick.  I  belong  to  the  family,  you 
know,  and  maybe  they  had  some  decency  about  talking 
over  Old  Crow  when  I  was  round.  I  don't  think  there 
was  anything  they  could  say.  He  was  a  perfectly  clean, 
decent  citizen.  He  kept  on  voting.  Pie  didn't  meddle 
with  them  and  they  didn't  with  him.  The  only  eccen 
tricity  about  him  was  that  he  lived  alone  and  that,  the 
last  ten  years  or  so  of  his  life,  he  tramped  all  round  that 
region,  over  the  mountain,  too,  taking  care  of  the  sick,  if 
there  were  any.  The  last  five  years  he  went  round  preach- 


OLD  CROW  69 

ing,  and  the  very  last  year  of  all  he  took  old  Billy  Jones 
into  his  hut,  an  awful  old  rip,  if  ever  there  was  one,  and 
tended  him  till  his  death — Billy's  death,  I  mean.  And  if 
you  consider  that  as  indicating  queerness — except  that 
people  don't  do  it — I  don't.  I  should  call  any  conven 
tional  disapproval  of  it  an  indictment  rather,  an  indict 
ment  of  Christianity.  If  it's  too  eccentric  to  fit  into  a 
so-called  Christian  civilization,  that  is." 

Dick  wasn't  going  to  call  it  anything  at  the  moment. 
He  sat  staring  at  the  table,  evidently  reflecting,  digesting 
and  bowed  down  by  his  own  gravity  in  a  way  that  always 
amused  Raven  even  when  he  loved  the  boy  most.  He 
fancied,  when  Dick  looked  like  that,  he  was  brooding  over 
his  nose. 

"Take  it  easy,  son,"  he  advised  him  pleasantly.  "You 
won't  get  anywhere  with  Old  Crow.  Guess  again." 

"No,"  said  Dick,  oblivious  of  the  flippancy  of  this,  "we 
sha'n't  get  anywhere.  We  haven't  enough  data." 

"Now,"  said  Raven,  coming  up  from  his  lounging  post 
ure,  "I've  got  to  hustle.  You  run  along  and  we'll  go  out 
somewhere  to-night:  dine,  if  you  want  to,  and  drop  in 
at  a  show.  But,  for  heaven's  sake,  don't  go  to  digging  up 
graveyards  and  expecting  me  to  reconstruct  your  ances 
tors  from  as  few  bones  as  we've  got  of  Old  Crow's.  You 
bore  me  sometimes,  horribly,  Dick.  And  that's  the  truth." 

Dick  did  go  away,  though  with  an  inarticulate  remon 
strance  on  his  tongue.  But  Raven  was  good-natured  and 
yet  decided,  and  even  went  to  the  door  with  him,  pro 
pelling  him  by  a  firm  yet  affectionate  hand  on  his 
shoulder. 

They  did  dine  out  that  night  in  a  manner  mildly  bo- 
hemian,  really  determined  upon  by  Raven  to  show  Dick  he 
wasn't  incapable  yet  of  the  accepted  forms  of  diversion, 
afflictingly  dull  though  they  might  prove. 


VII 


In  less  than  a  week  Raven,  hurried  beyond  any  design 
of  his  own  by  Dick's  anxious  attentions,  had  actually 
gone.  Once  in  the  train  on  the  way  into  the  uplands 
where  Wake  Hill  lies,  he  reflected,  with  a  smile,  that  Dick 
had  really  helped  him  inconceivably  in  this  matter  of 
haste.  He  might  have  loitered  along,  dallying  with  the 
wisdom  of  going,  and  possibly  ended  by  not  going  at  all. 
But  Dick's  insistence  on  formulating  the  situation,  his 
neatness  and  energy  in  getting  all  the  emotions  of  the 
case  into  their  proper  pigeon  holes,  had  so  harassed  and 
then  bored  him  that  he  had  worked  like  a  beaver,  he 
told  himself,  to  get  off  and  escape  them  altogether.  And 
not  a  word  from  Amelia,  either  to  his  telegram  or  Dick's 
letter.  Things  were  looking  up.  It  might  be  Amelia 
had  been  elected  to  some  new  and  absorbing  organization 
for  putting  the  social  edifice  still  more  irretrievably 
into  the  disorder  it  seemed  bent  for,  in  which  case  she 
might  forget  the  inner  wobblings  of  such  an  inconspicuous 
nomad  as  a  brother  in  metaphysical  pangs.  He  became 
recklessly  optimistic,  as  the  train  climbed  higher  into  the 
hills,  and  luxuriated  in  it,  conscious  all  the  time  that  it 
was  altitude  that  was  intoxicating  him,  not  any  real  hope 
of  hoodwinking  Amelia.  You  couldn't  do  that  so  easily. 

The  first  glimpse  of  a  far-away  mountain  brought  the 
surprising  tears  to  his  eyes.  It  was  an  inconsiderable 
ridge  with  an  outline  of  no  distinction,  but  it  had  the  old 

70 


OLD  CROW  71 

charm,  the  power  of  clutching  at  his  heart  and  dragging 
it  up  from  the  glories  and  sorrows  of  the  sea.  Raven 
always  insisted  that  he  loved  the  sea  best,  with  its  terrors 
and  multitudinous  activities;  but  the  mountains  did  pull 
him  up  somewhere  into  a  region  he  did  not  inhabit  all 
the  time.  He  had  an  idea  that  this  was  simply  a  plane  of 
physical  exhilaration;  but  it  didn't  matter.  It  was  an 
easement  of  a  sort,  if  only  the  difference  of  change. 
When  he  stepped  out  of  the  train  at  Wake  Hill  he  was  in 
a  tranquil  frame  of  mind,  and  the  more  the  minute  he  saw 
Jerry  Slate  there  in  the  pung,  enveloped  in  the  buffalo 
coat  he  had  worn  through  the  winter  months  ever  since  he 
attained  his  present  height.  Jerry  was  a  typical  man  of 
Wake  Hill.  He  was  ten  years,  at  least,  older  than  Raven 
and  had  lived  here,  man  and  boy,  all  his  life,  and  his  wife, 
Charlotte,  was  the  presiding  benevolence  of  the  Raven 
home.  Seeing  his  passenger,  he  lifted  his  whip-stock  in 
salute  and  stepped  out  of  the  pung  to  meet  him.  Jerry 
was  yellow  and  freckled  and  blue-eyed,  with  a  face,  Raven 
always  thought,  like  a  baked  apple.  It  had  still  a  rosy 
bloom,  but  the  puckers  overspread  it,  precisely  like  an 
apple's  after  fervent  heat.  They  shook  hands,  Jerry 
having  extracted  a  gnarled  member  from  his  mitten. 

"You  take  a  look  an'  see  'f  your  trunk's  come,"  he  rec 
ommended,  restoring  his  hand  to  its  beautifully  knit 
sheath.  "You're  better  acquainted  with  the  looks  on't 
than  I  be.  There  'tis  now.  Anyways  it's  the  only  one 
there." 

It  was  Raven's  own,  and  he  and  Jerry  lifted  it  into  the 
back  of  the  pung,  and  were  presently  jogging  temperately 
homeward.  Jerry  never  had  horses  with  any  go  in  them. 
In  the  old  days,  when  Raven  used  to  come  to  the  farm 
with  his  mother,  he  would  write  Jerry  to  see  that  he  had 
a  horse. 


72  OLD  CROW 

"Get  me  a  horse,"  he  would  write,  "a  horse,  a  horse, 
with  four  feet  and  a  mane  and  tail.  Not  a  wooden  freak 
out  of  Noah's  ark,  whittled  out  with  a  jack-knife,  such  as 
I  had  last  year.  Get  me  a  horse." 

And  he  would  arrive  to  find  some  aged  specimen,  raw- 
boned  and  indifferent,  waiting  for  him  in  the  stable.  And 
Jerry  wTould  slap  the  creature's  haunches  with  a  fictitious 
jollity  and  prophesy,  the  w^hile  he  kept  an  anxious  eye 
on  Raven,  "I  guess  he'll  suit  ye  all  right." 

He  never  did  suit.  He  had  to  be  swapped  off  or,  as  it 
happened  once  or  twice,  given  away,  and  yet  Raven  was 
obtuse  to  the  real  reason  until  Charlotte  enlightened  him. 
She  took  him  aside,  one  day  in  the  autumn,  when  he  and 
his  mother  were  going  back  to  town. 

"I  guess  if  you  want  any  horses  next  spring,"  she 
said,  with  one  eye  on  the  door  where  Jerry  might  appear, 
"you  better  fetch  'em  along  with  you." 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Raven,  "of  course  I  can.  Only  I  had 
an  idea  Jerry  liked  to  do  the  buying  for  the  place." 

"Not  horses,"  said  Charlotte  firmly.  "Jerry's  a  pecu 
liar  sort  of  man.  They  know  it  an'  they  kinder  take 
advantage  of  him.  I  dunno  why." 

Then  Raven  realized  that  Charlotte  herself  was  respon 
sible  for  his  faith  in  Jerry's  bargaining  prowess.  She 
had  hypnotized  him  into  considering  Jerry  a  great  fellow 
at  a  trade  as  at  everything  else  manly  and  invincible. 
She  was  watching  him  now  with  a  doubtful  and  anxious 
eye. 

"No,"  she  repeated,  "I  dunno  why." 

"No,"  said  Raven,  "I  don't  know  why  either.  But  I'll 
look  out  for  it."  At  that  instant  he  understood  her  way 
with  Jerry  and  loved  her  for  it.  She  was  tall  and  heavy- 
browed  and  dark,  with  warm,  brown  tints  of  eyes  and  skin, 
and  seven  times  the  man  Jerry  was,  but  it  was  her 


OLD  CROW  73 

passionate  intent  to  hold  him  supreme  at  home  and 
market. 

Meantime  they  were  jingling  along,  with  a  chill  clash 
ing  of  bells,  and  Raven  had  heard  all  about  the  prospects 
of  an  open  winter  and  the  difficulties  of  ice-cutting,  and 
he  gathered  that  Jerry  and  Charlotte  were  extremely 
pleased  to  have  him  come. 

"Didn't  know's  we  should  ever  set  eyes  on  ye  ag'in," 
said  Jerry,  with  an  innocuous  flick  of  his  whiplash,  hit 
ting  the  dasher  by  intent.  "That  War  an'  all." 

Raven  thought  he  detected  in  his  tone  a  general  hos 
tility  to  the  War  as  a  disturber  even  of  Wake  Hill,  and 
wondered  if  he  should  have  to  fight  it  all  over  again  with 
the  imperfectly  satisfied  ideals  of  Jerry  and  Charlotte. 
But  Jerry  laid  that  bogey  to  rest. 

"Not  that  I  wouldn't  ha'  had  ye  go,"  he  announced. 
"I?d  ha'  gone  myself  if  I  hadn't  been  a  leetle  mite  over 
age.  I  dunno  but  I  could  ha'  been  some  use  as  'twas.  I'm 
spry  for  my  years.  I  never  so  much  as  thought  you'd  git 
into  it.  Charlotte  an'  I  were  talkin'  it  over  last  night, 
an'  she  says,  'He's  forty-three,  if  he's  a  day.'  How  old 
be  you?" 

"Forty-five,"  said  Raven.  "I  wasn't  in  the  trenches, 
you  know.  Ambulance  Corps." 

"Sho !"  said  Jerry.  "Never  come  nigh  the  fightin'  line, 
I  s'pose." 

"Sometimes,"  said  Raven,  smiling  a  little  to  himself. 
"But  the  boys  in  the  trenches,  you  know,  they're  the  ones 
that  did  the  business.  I  suppose  the  Hamilton  house  was 
closed  all  summer?" 

Jerry  gave  him  a  quick  look  and  then  took  off  a  mitten 
to  pass  his  hand  across  his  mouth.  Raven  knew  what  the 
look  meant.  It  meant  Anne  Hamilton :  how  had  her  death 
affected  him?  would  he  ask  about  her?  and  the  mild  inquis- 


74  OLD  CROW 

itive  neighborhood  mind  would  go  back  to  the  old  question 
it  had  probably  dropped  and  taken  up  intermittently  for 
years:  why,  in  their  curious  intimacy,  had  he  never  mar 
ried  her? 

"Yes,"  said  Jerry,  "all  summer.  Little  Nan  was  over 
there,  too,  where  you  were,  I  understood." 

"Yes,  she  was  over  there.     She's  home  now." 

"You  knew  her  aunt  died?"  said  Jerry  speciously.  It 
was  foolish,  he  knew  it  was  foolish,  and  yet  he  could  not, 
in  his  craving  for  some  amplification  of  the  fact,  help 
saying  it. 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "I  knew  it." 

There  the  topic  died.  They  were  passing  the  last 
stretch  of  woods  that  fringed  the  road  before  Raven's  own 
house.  Up  on  that  slope  at  the  right,  draped  about  by 
a  dense  woodland,  occasional  patches  of  pines  girdled  by 
birch  and  maple,  was  the  hut  where  Old  Crow  had  lived. 
A  logging  road  came  down  from  the  ridge,  and  Raven  saw 
with  interest  that  it  had  been  broken  out. 

"Chopping?"  he  asked,  Jerry  following  his  glance  to 
the  ascending  road. 

Jerry  grinned  and  clucked  to  the  horse.  He  looked  well 
satisfied  with  himself. 

"No,"  he  said.  "But  the  minute  you  wrote  you  was 
comin',  I  yoked  up  the  oxen  an'  broke  her  out.  Charlotte 
said  you'd  want  to  be  goin'  up  there." 

Raven  laughed.  It  was  funny,  too  grimly  funny.  Even 
Charlotte  and  Jerry  were  pushing  him  on  up  the  rise  to 
Old  Crow's  hut.  Dick  had  begun  it  and  they  were  adding 
the  impulse  of  their  kindly  forethought. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  shall.  I'll  go  up  at  once."  ("And 
have  it  over!"  his  mind  cynically  added.) 

They  were  descending  the  last  slope  and  the  mild-man 
nered  horse  caught  the  idea  of  stables  and  put  on  a  gait. 


OLD  CROW  75 

Raven  could  see  the  house,  delightful  to  him  in  its  hos 
pitable  amplitude  and  starkly  fitting  the  wintry  land 
scape.  There  in  the  columned  front  porch  running 
away  at  each  side  into  wide  verandas,  stood  a  woman,  tall, 
of  proportions  that  looked,  at  this  first  glance,  heroic. 
She  wore  a  shawl  about  her  shoulders,  but  her  head  was 
bare. 

"There  she  is,"  said  Jerry,  with  an  evident  pride  in  so 
splendid  a  fact.  "I  tell  her  she  never  can  wait  a  minute 
to  let  anybody  turn  round." 

It  was  true.  Charlotte  could  not  wait.  She  began  to 
wave — no  short,  staccato,  pump-handle  wave,  but  a  sweep 
indicative- of  breadth,  like  the  horizon  line.  Raven,  while 
they  were  jingling  up  to  the  house,  took  one  more  look 
at  it,  recognizing,  with  a  surprise  that  was  almost  poign 
ant,  how  much  it  meant  to  him.  He  might  not  be  glad 
to  get  back  to  it — in  his  present  state  of  disaffection  he 
could  not  believe  there  was  a  spot  on  earth  he  should  be 
glad  to  see — but  it  touched  the  chord  of  old  memories  and 
his  eyes  were  hot  with  the  assault  of  it.  A  square  house 
with  many  additions,  so  that  it  rambled  comfortably  away, 
threaded  over  at  advantageous  points  by  leafless  lines  of 
woodbine  and  bitter-sweet  and  murmured  over  by  a  great 
grove  of  pines  at  the  west :  his  roots  of  life  were  here,  he 
recognized,  with  a  renewed  pang  of  surprise.  He  was  not 
used  to  thinking  about  himself.  Now  that  the  changed 
bias  of  his  mind  had  bred  new  habits,  he  was  thinking  a 
great  deal. 

They  stopped  at  the  porch  and  Charlotte  came  down 
to  them,  stepping  lightly  yet  with  deliberation.  Raven 
knew  she  probably  moved  slowly  because  she  was  so  heavy, 
but  it  gave  the  effect  of  majesty  walking.  She  was  un 
changed,  he  thought,  as  he  grasped  her  firm  hand :  her 
smooth  brown  hair  was  as  thick,  her  healthy  face  unlined. 


76  OLD  CROW 

When  he  touched  Charlotte  he  always  felt  as  if  he  touched 
the  earth  itself.  Her  hand  was  the  hand  of  earth,  ready 
to  lead  you  to  wholesome  and  satisfying  things. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "if  I  ain't  pleased  to  see  you !  Jerry, 
you  goin'  to  take  the  trunk  in  this  way?" 

Jerry  gave  her  a  quick  look  of  inquiry.  They  had 
subtle  modes  of  communication.  Charlotte  could  com 
mand  him  by  the  flicker  of  an  eyelash  or  a  modulation  of 
tone,  so  that  Jerry  seemed,  in  the  resultant  act,  to  be 
following  only  his  own  careless  or  deliberate  will. 

"Yep,"  said  he,  "I'll  see  to  her." 

Raven  laid  hold  of  it  with  him  and  they  carried  it 
upstairs  to  the  great  front  room  looking  out  to  the  east 
ern  sky.  And  Raven  was  again  moved,  as  he  went,  by 
another  surprising  discovery :  Charlotte  had  tears  in  her 
eyes.  He  had  at  all  times  a  moderate  estimate  of  his 
own  value  in  the  world,  his  own  appeal  to  it.  Perhaps 
that  was  one  reason,  aside  from  the  natural  sex  revulsion, 
why  Anne's  exaggerated  fostering  had  roused  in  him  that 
wearied  perversity.  But  it  was  warming  to  see  Charlotte 
glad  enough  to  cry  over  him.  When  they  had  set  down 
the  trunk  and  the  two  had  gone  downstairs,  he  looked 
about  the  room  and  found  it  good.  The  walls  were  chiefly 
paneling,  all  but  some  expanses  of  a  rich  rose  and  blue 
paper;  the  hangings  were  of  a  delicious  blue,  and  a  roar 
ing  fire  was  making  great  headway.  He  could  guess  Char 
lotte  had  timed  that  birch  log,  relative  to  their  approach, 
for  the  curling  bark  had  not  yet  blackened  and  the  fat 
chuckle  of  it  was  still  insistent.  He  laughed  a  little  at 
himself.  He  might  have  repudiated  the  scheme  of  crea 
tion  and  his  own  place  in  it,  but  he  did  love  things :  dear, 
homespun,  familiar  things,  potent  to  eke  out  man's  well- 
being  with  their  own  benevolence  and  make  him  temporar 
ily  content  in  an  inhospitable  world. 


OLD  CROW  77 

When  he  went  downstairs,  the  smells  from  the  kitchen 
were  something  overwhelming  in  their  rich  pervasiveness. 
He  went  directly  in  where  Charlotte  bent  at  the  oven  door 
for  a  frowning  inspection  and  a  resultant  basting. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  glancing  up,  "turkey.  Jerry  set  him 
aside,  sort  of — he  was  so  well  formed  and  had  such  nice, 
pretty  ways.  Jerry  said  we'd  have  him  first  time  you 
come.  He's  always  be'n  a  terrible  nice  turkey." 

Raven  had  seen  his  place  laid  in  the  dining-room  with 
bravery  of  damask  and  old  china. 

"I'm  not  going  to  eat  alone,"  he  said.  "I  couldn't  face 
a  whole  turkey.  You  and  Jerry  come  on  in  and  back  me 
up.  You  set  on  two  more  plates." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Charlotte,  closing  the  oven  door  and  ris 
ing.  "I  guess  I'll  give  him  a  minute  longer.  No.  It's 
real  nice  of  you,  but  we  couldn't.  Jerry  never  would  in 
the  world." 

"Jerry  be  hanged !"  said  Raven.  He  wandered  into  the 
pantry  and  began  helping  himself  to  the  celery  waiting  by 
the  cool  window-pane.  "Tell  him  it's  all  decided.  Jerry's 
got  to  do  what  we  say." 

"If  that  ain't  just  like  you,"  said  Charlotte,  with  what 
seemed  a  pride  in  his  knowing  ways.  "Eatin'  up  the  cel 
ery  an'  all,  the  minute  'fore  dinner,  too.  I  wonder  you 
don't  pry  into  the  cooky  jar." 

"I  will,  now  you  mention  it,"  said  Raven,  bending  to 
it  where  it  lurked,  with  its  secretive  look,  under  the  lower 
shelf.  He  lifted  the  cover  with  an  involuntary  care.  He 
had  been  there  so  often  when  he  wanted  a  handful  of 
cookies  and  knew,  if  he  clinked  the  cover,  he  might  hear 
his  father's  voice  from  the  dining-room  where  he  sat  read 
ing  his  paper:  "W7hat  are  you  doing  out  there?"  The 
cookies  were  waiting  for  him,  unchanged,  as  if  there  were 
an  everlasting  pattern  of  cookies  and  you  couldn't  get 


78  OLD  CROW 

away  from  it:  oak-leaf,  discreetly  specked  with  caraway. 
"Hurry  up,"  said  he,  coming  out  to  Charlotte  with  his 
clutch  of  oak-leaves.  "Put  on  your  plate  and  Jerry's  or 
the  turkey'll  be  done  before  you  know  it." 

Charlotte  glanced  round  at  him,  absently  took  the 
cookies  from  his  hand,  as  if  he  were  a  child  whose 
greed  must  be  regulated,  and  laid  them  in  a  plate  on  the 
table. 

"Don't  you  spoil  your  appetite,"  she  said,  still  absently, 
for  her  mind  was  with  the  turkey.  Well,  I'll  go  an'  ask 
Jerry.  I  don't  believe  he'll  feel  to.  Miss  Anne " 

Raven  was  sure  he  heard  the  last  two  words  as  she  made 
her  light  way  out  into  the  shed  in  a  fictitious  search  for 
Jerry.  He  stood  staring  after  her  and  wondering.  It 
was  inconceivable  that  Anne,  by  sheer  force  of  a  mind 
absolutely  convinced  of  its  own  Tightness,  should  have  had 
such  a  grip  on  everybody  she  came  in  contact  with.  It 
had  been  Anne's  house  next  door.  She  had  spent  her 
summers  in  it,  and  even  Charlotte  had  imbibed  through 
its  walls  the  pronouncements  of  a  social  code.  Anne  was 
dead,  but  when  Charlotte  and  Jerry  were  asked  to  sit 
down  to  turkey  with  their  employer  and  familiar  friend, 
it  was  Anne's  unforgotten  ideal  that  rose  before  her,  the 
illuminated  copy  of  the  social  code  in  its  rigid  hand. 
As  he  stood,  he  saw  Jerry  pulling  the  pung  under  a  shed 
at  the  back  of  the  barn.  He  knew  Charlotte  hadn't  seen 
him,  didn't  intend  to  take  the  time  to  see  him,  but  would 
presently  be  back  with  Jerry's  ultimatum.  That  was  her 
system.  She  implicitly  followed  Jerry's  command,  a  com 
mand  she  had  already  put  into  his  mouth.  It  was  so 
accepted  a  part  of  the  household  routine  that  he  had 
ceased  to  think  of  it  as  in  the  least  unusual.  She  was 
back  again  almost  at  once. 

"Jerry  says  he'd  be  happy  to,  to-day,"  she  announced, 


OLD  CROW  79 

"so  long's  as  he  ain't  changed  back  into  his  barn  clo'es. 
We'll  be  kinder  company.  But  after  this,  he  says,  we'll 
begin  as  usual." 

So  presently  they  sat  down  together  to  the  crackly 
brown  turkey  and  Raven  carved  and  fought  off  Charlotte, 
who  rose  from  her  place  in  a  majestic  authority  which 
seemed  the  highest  decorum  to  take  the  fork  and  pick  out 
titbits  for  his  plate,  and  they  talked  of  countryside 
affairs,  but  never,  Raven  was  grateful  to  notice,  of  his 
absence  or  of  France.  Once  Jerry  did  begin  a  question 
relative  to  "them  long  range  guns,"  but  Charlotte  bore 
him  down  before  Raven  could  lay  hold  of  the  question, 
even  if  he  had  been  eager  for  it. 

"Jerry's  forbid  me  to  ask  you  the  leastest  thing  about 
how  'twas  over  there,"  she  said  smoothly,  without  a  look 
at  Jerry,  but  a  direct  intention  that  was  like  a  swift  secret 
communication  between  them,  a  line  not  even  to  be  tapped. 
"He  says,  'We  won't  say  one  word  about  what  Mr.  Raven's 
been  through,  not  if  he  begins  to  talk  about  it  himself. 
He's  been  through  enough,'  says  he.  'Now  le's  let  him 
turn  his  mind  to  suthin'  else.' ' 

"Yes,"  said  Jerry  boldly,  "I  guess  that's  pretty  nigh 
what  I  said — what  I'd  say  now,  anyways." 

Raven  smiled  a  little  inwardly,  as  he  often  did  at  AMr. 
Raven."  He  and  Jerry  and  Charlotte  had  been  neighbors, 
and  he,  being  younger,  was  always  "young  John"  to  them, 
and  sometimes,  in  excess  of  friendliness  or  exhortation, 
"Jack."  He  wondered  if  it  had  been  the  social  idealism 
of  Anne  that  had  made  them  attain  the  proper  title,  or 
if,  when  the  crust  of  renewed  convention  broke  through, 
they  would,  under  the  stress  of  common  activities,  flounder 
about  as  they  did  before  he  went  away,  in  an  intermittent 
familiarity. 

"All  the  houses  shut  up,"  he  said,  "the  summer  houses?" 


80  OLD  CROW 

"Yes,"  said  Charlotte,  eating  her  wing  delicately,  per 
haps  with  a  thought  of  Anne.  "City  folks  all  gone.  Went 
early  this  year,  too.  Wood's  so  high  now,  if  they  ain't 
cut  their  own  they  don't  seem  to  want  to  lay  in.  Jerry 
says  they'd  ought  to  think  further  ahead." 

"Yes,"  said  Jerry,  with  his  mechanical  acquiescence, 
"they'd  ought  to  think  further  ahead." 

"Who's  bought  the  old  Frye  place?"  asked  Raven.  "Or 
is  it  empty?" 

"No,"  said  Charlotte,  "it  ain't  empty.  I  dunno's  you 
remember  the  Tenneys  that  used  to  live  over  the  mountain, 
what  they  call  Mountain  Brook.  Kind  of  a  shif'less  lot 
they  were.  Some  of  'em  drinked." 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Raven,  "I  remember  'em.  The  boys 
used  to  do  a  lot  of  trapping.  One  of  'em — what  was  his 
name?  Israel,  yes,  that's  it.  Israel — he  seemed  to  be  of 
a  different  stripe.  Used  to  work  out.  Seemed  to  want  to 
make  something  of  himself." 

"That's  him,"  said  Charlotte.  "Well,  he's  bought  the 
Frye  place." 

"Married?" 

"Yes,  he  married  a  girl  over  there,  at  Mountain  Brook. 
He'd  been  away  years  an'  years,  sence  he  was  a  grow  in' 
boy,  an'  he  come  back,  an'  seems  he  had  money  laid  up, 
an'  he  bought  the  Frye  farm  an'  went  straight  off  over 
to  Mountain  Brook  an'  hunted  her  up  an'  married  her. 
She  used  to  have  folks,  but  they've  all  moved  away.  Seems 
if  he'd  had  her  in  mind  all  the  time.  Kind  o'  that  way, 
he  is,  lays  his  fires  a  good  while  beforehand." 

"Nice  girl?"  Raven  inquired. 

Charlotte  hesitated.     Her  brown  cheek  flushed. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "I  never've  heard  anything  ag'inst 
her,  not  anything  I  should  be  willin'  to  repeat.  You  know 
what  they  be,  there  over  the  mountain.  There's  the 


OLD  CROW  81 

Donnyhills.  Good  folks,  but  shif  less  !  my  soul !  Though 
she  ain't  that." 

"Called  on  her,  haven't  you?" 

"No,"  said  Charlotte.  She  wore  the  flush  of  resentful 
matronhood.  "I  was  goin'  to.  I  started,  one  afternoon. 
An'  after  I'd  knocked,  I  heard  him  jawin'.  Well!  You 
never  heard  a  man  talk  so  in  all  your  life.  I  never  did, 
anyways  !  twittin'  her  with  everything  under  the  sun." 

"Nice  for  you,"  said  Raven,  "butting-  in  on  a  row." 

"I  didn't  butt  in,"  said  Charlotte.  "I  turned  round  an' 
come  straight  home.  An'  the  next  day  they  rode  by,  as 
budge  as  you  please,  she  with  the  baby  in  her  lap.  Baby 
had  on  a  nice  white  coat.  1  didn't  go  ag'in.  I  didn't  feel 
to." 

Then  Raven,  seeing  that  Jerry  had  regretfully  but 
inevitably  laid  down  his  knife  and  fork,  as  one  who  can  no 
more,  relinquished  the  Tenneys,  and  there  was  a  period 
of  that  silence  so  blessed  among  intimates,  and  Charlotte 
brought  in  the  pudding.  And  after  dinner,  while  she 
washed  the  dishes,  Raven  sat  in  the  kitchen  and  smoked 
a  pipe  with  Jerry  and  thought  intermittently,  in  the 
inmost  cell  of  his  most  secret  mind,  about  the  blessed 
beauties  of  things.  Here  they  were  all  about  him,  inher 
ited  treasures  of  memory,  some  of  them  homely  and  of 
little  value,  many  of  them  far  less  convenient  than  the 
appliances  of  the  present  day.  He  even  thought  he  recog 
nized  ancient  utensils,  as  Charlotte  washed  them,  the  great 
iron  spider  where  crullers  were  fried — always  with  a  few 
cut  in  hands  with  straight  fat  fingers,  to  suit  a  boyish 
fancy — and  the  colander  he  had  once  been  found  utilizing 
as  a  helmet  in  a  play  of  chivalry.  Such  smells  came  out 
of  this  kitchen,  like  no  other  smells  in  any  house  he  knew. 
The  outlines  of  things,  the  tints  of  time  and  use !  There 
was  the  red  door  into  the  buttery,  where  once,  when  he 


82  OLD  CROW 

was  a  little  boy,  he  had  caught  for  a  few  minutes  only  an 
enchanting  glow  from  the  setting  sun.  Sunrise  and  rubies 
and  roses :  none  of  them  had  ever  equaled  the  western  light 
on  the  old  red  paint.  Over  and  over  again  he  had  tried 
to  recall  the  magic,  to  set  the  door  at  the  precise  angle 
to  catch  the  level  rays,  but  in  vain.  It  was  a  moment  of 
beauty,  fleeting  as  the  sunset  itself,  and  only  to  be  found 
in  the  one  permanence  that  is  memory.  He  remembered 
it  now  with  a  thousand  other  impressions  as  lasting  and 
as  lost,  and  childhood  and  youth  came  alive  in  him  and 
hurt  and  helped  him.  Yes,  this  was  home.  In  a  hostile 
universe  there  was  one  spot  where  he  and  the  past  could 
safely  rest. 


VIII 


Raven  went  to  sleep  thinking  simply  about  the  house, 
while  the  fire  flickered  down  on  the  hearth  and  shadows 
all  about  the  room  flickered  with  it  and  then  went  out. 
He  always  loved  shadows,  their  beauties  and  grotesqueries, 
and  he  was  unfeignedly  glad  he  had  no  scientific  under 
standing  of  them,  why  they  played  this  way  or  that  and 
translated  the  substance  that  made  them  so  delicately 
and  sometimes  with  such  an  adorable  foolishness.  He  liked 
it  better  that  way,  liked  to  make  out  of  them  a  game  of 
surprises  and  pretend  they  were  in  good  form  and  doing 
particularly  well,  or  again  far  below  their  highest.  And 
following  his  childishly  enchanting  game  he  began  to  feel 
rather  abashed  over  what  had  brought  him  here.  He  was 
glad  to  have  come.  It  was  the  only  place  for  him,  dis 
ordered  as  he  was,  with  its  wholesome  calm,  and  he  won 
dered  further  if  the  state  of  mind  that  had  become  habit 
ual  to  him  was  now  a  state  of  mind  at  all.  Was  it  not 
rather  a  temporary  drop  in  mental  temperature  now  calm 
ing  to  normal?  Hadn't  he  exaggerated  the  complication 
of  Anne's  bequest?  There  was  a  way  out  of  it;  there 
must  be,  a  sane,  practical  way  to  satisfy  what  she  wished 
and  what  she  might  be  supposed  to  wish  now.  He  com 
forted  himself  with  the  pious  sophistry  of  an  Anne  raised 
on  the  wrind  of  death  above  early  inconclusions  and  so, 
of  course,  agreeing  with  him  who  didn't  have  to  pass  the 
gates  of  mystery  to  be  so  raised.  He  knew  enough,  evi 
dently,  so  that  he  didn't  need  to  die  to  know  more.  His 

83 


84  OLD  CROW 

letter  to  Dick  seemed  of  inconsiderable  importance,  even 
the  disaster  of  its  reaching  Amelia.  If  she  held  him  up 
to  it,  he  could  laugh  it  off.  Anything  could  be  laughed 
off.  So,  the  shadows  mingling  with  the  inconsequence  of 
his  thoughts,  he  drifted  away  to  sleep,  catching  himself 
back,  now  and  then,  to  luxuriate  in  the  assurance  that  he 
was  in  the  right  place,  finding  comfortable  assuagements, 
and  that  inexplicably,  because  so  suddenly,  everything  was 
for  the  best  in  a  mysterious  but  probably  entirely  unac 
countable  world. 

At  four  o'clock  he  woke.  He  had  not  for  a  moment  last 
night  expected  this.  Four  o'clock  had  been  for  months 
the  hour  of  his  tryst  with  the  powers  of  darkness.  They 
hovered  over  him  then  with  dull  grey  wings  extended, 
from  sunrise  to  sunset,  from  east  to  west.  He  never  had 
the  courage  to  peer  up  at  them  and  see  how  far  the  wings 
really  did  reach.  They  covered  his  mortal  sky,  and  when 
he  refused  to  stare  up  into  their  leaden  pinions,  they 
stooped  to  him  and  buffeted  and  smothered  him,  until  he 
was  such  a  mass  of  bruised  suffering  within  that  he  could 
almost  believe  his  body  also  was  quivering  into  the  numb 
ness  of  acquiescent  misery.  And  here  were  the  wings 
again.  They  were  even  lower,  in  spite  of  this  clear  air. 
They  did  not  merely  shut  it  out  from  his  nostrils,  but  the 
filthy  pinions  swept  his  face  and  roused  in  him  the  utter 
most  revulsion  of  mortal  man  against  the  accident  of  his 
mortality.  The  trouble  of  earth  passed  before  him  in  its 
unceasing  panorama,  a  pageant  of  pain  and  death.  Every 
atom  of  creation  was  against  every  other  atom,  because 
everywhere  was  warfare,  murder  and  rapine,  for  the  mere 
chance  of  living.  He  had  won  his  inherited  chance  by 
sheer  luck  of  contest  through  millions  of  years  while  his 
forebears  came  up  from  the  slime  and  the  cave.  The  little 
hunted  creature,  shrieking  out  there  in  the  wood  in  the 


OLD  CROW  85 

clutch  of  a  predatory  enemy  was  not  so  lucky.  It  was 
the  enemy  who  was  lucky  to-night,  but  to-morrow  night  the 
enemy  himself  might  go  down  under  longer  claws  and  be 
torn  by  fangs  stronger  than  his  own.  And  God  had  made 
it  so.  And  God  did  not  care. 

Raven  lay  there  panting  under  the  horror  of  it.  The 
sweat  started  on  his  skin.  He  was  afraid.  It  was  not 
his  own  well-being  he  feared  for.  Man's  life  was  short 
at  the  most.  A  few  years  might  finish  him  up.  It  was 
unlikely  that  he  need  live  again.  But  he  feared  seeing 
still  more  of  the  acts  of  this  unmindful  God,  who  could 
make,  and  set  the  wheel  of  being  to  turning  and  then  stand 
aside  and  let  them  grind  out  their  immeasurable  grist 
of  woe.  And  when  he  asked  himself  how  he  knew  God 
was  standing  aside,  letting  the  days  and  years  fulfil  their 
sum,  he  believed  it  was  because  he  had  suddenly  become 
aware  that  time  was  a  boundless  sea  and  that  the  human 
soul  was  sometimes  in  the  trough  of  it  and  sometimes  on 
the  crest.  But  never  would  the  sea  cast  its  derelicts  upon 
warm  shores  where  they  might  build  the  house  of  life  and 
live  in  peace  and  innocence.  Ever  would  they  find  them 
selves  tossed  from  low  to  high  and  fall  from  high  to  low 
again  in  the  salt  wash  of  the  retreating  wave.  For  after 
all,  it  was  the  mysterious  sea  God  had  a  mind  to,  never 
the  derelict  atoms  afloat  on  it.  They  would  have  to  take 
sea  weather  to  time's  extrcmest  verge,  as  they  always  had 
taken  it.  They  were  derelicts. 

As  the  light  came,  the  leaden  wings  lifted  and  he  went 
down  to  the  early  breakfast  Charlotte  and  Jerry  intended 
to  eat  alone.  Charlotte,  with  her  good  morning,  gave  him 
a  quick  glance.  He  found  she  had  not  expected  him  so 
early  and  knew  she  saw  at  once  how  harassed  he  was.  He 
insisted  on  sitting  down  to  breakfast  with  them  and,  after 
Jerry  had  gone  out,  went  over  the  house  in  a  mindless 


86  OLD  CROW 

way,  mto  all  the  rooms,  to  give  himself  something  to  do. 
Also  there  seemed  to  be  a  propriety  in  it,  a  fittingness  in 
presenting  himself  to  his  own  walls  and  accepting  their 
silent  recognition.  Then,  hearing  Charlotte  upstairs,  he 
went  back  into  the  kitchen,  as  straight  as  if  he  had  meant 
to  go  there  all  the  time  and  had  merely  idled  on  these 
delaying-  quests,  and  up  to  the  nail  by  the  shed  door 
where  the  key  always  hung,  the  key  to  Old  Crow's  hut. 
He  took  it  off  the  nail,  dropped  it  in  his  pocket,  got  a 
leather  jacket  from  the  hall  and  went  out  into  the  road. 
As  he  went,  he  heard  Jerry  moving  about  in  the  barn  and 
walked  the  faster,  not  to  be  halted  or  offered  friendly 
company.  At  the  great  maples  he  paused,  two  of  them 
marking  the  entrance  to  the  wood  road,  and  looked  about 
him.  The  world  was  resolutely  still.  The  snow  was  not 
deep,  but  none  of  it  had  melted.  It  was  of  a  uniform 
whiteness  and  luster  and  the  shadows  in  it  were  deeply  blue. 
There  were  tracks  frozen  into  it  all  along  the  road,  many 
of  them  old  ones,  others  just  broken,  the  story  of  some 
animal's  wandering.  Then  he  turned  into  the  wood  road 
and  began  to  climb  the  rise,  and  as  he  went  he  was  con 
scious  of  an  unaccountable  excitement.  Dick  was  respon 
sible  for  that,  he  told  himself.  Dick  had  waked  his  mind 
to  old  memories.  This  was,  in  effect,  and  all  owing  to 
Dick,  a  tryst  with  Old  Crow. 

He  remembered  every  step  of  the  way,  what  he  might 
find  if  he  could  sweep  off  the  snow  or  wait  until  June  and 
let  the  mounting  sun  sweep  it  according  to  its  own 
method.  Here  at  the  right  would  be  the  great  patch  of 
clintonia.  Further  in  at  the  left  was  tiarella,  with  its 
darling  leaf,  and  along  under  the  yellow  birches  the  lady's 
slipper  he  had  transplanted,  year  after  year,  and  that 
finally  took  root  and  showed  a  fine  sturdiness  he  had  never 
seen  exceeded  elsewhere.  He  went  on  musing  over  the 


OLD  CROW  87 

permanence  of  things  and  the  mutability  of  mortal  joy, 
wondering  if,  in  this  world  He  had  made  without  remedies 
for  its  native  ills,  God  could  take  pleasure  in  the  bleak 
framework  of  it.  And  when  he  had  nearly  reached  the 
top  of  the  slope,  the  three  firs,  where  a  turn  to  the  left 
would  bring  him  to  the  log  cabin  door,  suddenly  he 
stopped  as  if  his  inner  self  heard  the  command  to  halt. 
He  looked  about  him,  and  his  heart  began  to  beat  hard. 
But  he  was  not  surprised.  What  could  be  more  moving 
than  the  winter  stillness  of  the  woods  in  a  spot  all  mem 
ories?  Yet  he  wras  in  no  welcoming  mood  for  high  emo 
tion,  and  looking  up  and  about,  to  shake  off  the  wood 
magic,  there  at  a  little  distance  at  his  right,  between  pine 
boles,  he  saw  her,  the  woman.  She  was  tall  and  slender, 
yet  grandly  formed.  A  blue  cloak  was  wrapped  about  her 
and  her  head  was  bare.  Her  face  had  a  gaunt  beauty 
such  as  he  had  never  seen.  The  eyes,  richly  blue  but 
darkened  by  the  startled  pupil,  were  bewildering  in  their 
soft  yet  steady  appealingness.  Her  hair  was  parted  and 
carried  back  in  waves  extraordinarily  thick  and  probably 
knotted  behind.  That,  of  course,  he  could  not  see.  But 
the  little  soft  rings  of  it  about  her  forehead  he  noted 
absently.  And  her  look  was  so  full  of  dramatic  tension, 
of  patient,  noble  gravity,  even  grief,  that  one  phrase 
flashed  into  his  mind,  "The  Mother  of  Sorrows !"  and 
stayed  there.  So  moving  was  her  face  that,  although  he 
had  at  the  first  instant  taken  in  her  entire  outline,  the 
significance  of  it  had  not  struck  him  until  now.  On  her 
arm,  in  the  immemorial  mother's  fashion,  she  carried  a 
child.  The  child  was  in  white  and  a  blue  scarf  was  tied 
about  his  head.  When  Raven  saw  the  scarf,  his  tension 
relaxed.  There  was  something  about  the  scarf  that  was 
real,  was  earthly:  a  ragged  break  in  one  free  corner.  In 
the  relief  of  seeing  the  break,  and  being  thus  brought  back 


88  OLD  CROW 

to  tangible  things,  he  realized  that  he  had,  in  a  perfect 
seriousness,  for  one  amazing  minute,  believed  the  woman 
and  the  child  to  be  not  human  but  divine.  They  were, 
as  they  struck  upon  his  eyes,  a  vision,  and  he  would  have 
been  in  no  sense  surprised  to  see  the  vision  fade.  It  was 
the  Virgin  Mary  and  her  Son.  Now,  as  he  realized  with 
the  lightning  rapidity  of  a  morbidly  excited  mind  how 
terribly  sensitive  to  his  own  needs  he  must  be  to  have 
clutched  so  irrationally  at  a  world-old  remedy,  he  took 
off  his  hat  and  called  to  her: 

"You  startled  me." 

Without  waiting  for  any  response,  he  turned  to  the  left, 
because  the  probabilities  were  that  he  had  startled  her 
also,  and  that  was  why  she  had  stood  there,  petrified  into 
the  catalepsy  of  wood  animals  struck  by  cautionary  fear. 
But,  as  he  turned,  a  man's  voice  sounded  through  the 
woods,  and  waked  an  echo : 

"Hullo  !"  it  called.     "Hullo  !" 

Raven  involuntarily  paused,  and  saw  the  woman  run 
ning  toward  him.  There  were  stumps  in  her  way,  but  she 
stepped  over  them  lightly,  and  once,  when  she  had  to 
cross  a  hollow  where  the  snow  lay  deep,  she  sank  in  up  to 
her  knees,  and  Raven  involuntarily  stepped  forward  to 
help  her.  But  she  freed  herself  with  incredible  quickness 
and  came  on.  It  might  have  been  water  she  was  wading 
in,  so  little  did  it  check  her.  She  halted  before  him,  only 
a  pace  away,  as  if  she  must  be  near  in  order  to  speak 
cautiously,  and  Raven  noted  the  exquisite  texture  of  her 
pale  skin  and  the  pathos  of  her  eyes,  the  pupils  distended 
now  so  that  he  wondered  if  they  could  be  blue.  Meantime 
the  voice  kept  on  calling,  "Hullo  !  hullo  !" 

She  spoke  tremulously,  in  haste: 

"He'll  be  up  here  in  a  minute.     You  say  you  ain't  seen 


OLD  CROW  89 

"Is  it  some  one  you're  afraid  of?"  Haven  asked. 

She  nodded,  in  a  dumb  anguish. 

"Then,"  said  he,  "we'll  both  stay  here  till  he  comes, 
and  afterward  I'll  go  with  you,  wherever  you're  going." 

This,  it  seemed,  moved  her  to  a  terror  more  acute. 

"No !  no !"  she  said,  and  she  appeared  to  have  so  little 
breath  to  say  it  that,  if  he  had  not  been  watching  her  lips, 
he  could  not  have  caught  it.  "Not  you.  That  would 
make  him  madder'n  ever.  You  go  away.  Hide  you  some- 
wheres,  quick." 

"No,"  said  Raven,  "I  sha'n't  hide.  I'll  hide  you.  Come 
along." 

He  took  her  by  the  arm  and,  though  she  was  remon 
strating  breathlessly,  hurried  her  to  the  left.  They  passed 
the  three  firs  at  the  turn  and  he  smiled  a  little,  noting 
Jerry's  good  road  and  thinking  there  was  some  use  in  this 
combined  insistence  on  his  following  the  steps  of  Old  Crow. 
There  was  the  hut,  in  its  rough  kindliness,  and  there,  the 
smoke  told  him,  was  a  fire.  Jerry  had  been  up  that  morn 
ing,  because  Charlotte  must  have  known  he'd  come  there 
the  first  thing.  Still  smoothing  the  road  to  Old  Crow! 
He  had  been  fumbling  with  one  hand  for  the  ke}^,  the  while 
he  kept  the  other  on  her  arm.  She  was  so  terrified  a 
creature  now  that  he  did  not  trust  her  not  to  break  blindly 
away  and  run.  He  unlocked  the  door,  pushed  her  in, 
closed  and  locked  it.  Then  he  dropped  the  key  in  his 
pocket  and  went  back  to  the  wood  road.  With  a  sudden 
thought,  he  took  his  knife  from  his  pocket  and  tossed  it 
down  the  road  into  a  little  heap  of  brush.  Meanwhile 
the  man  was  coming  nearer  and,  as  he  came,  he  called: 
"Hullo !" 

Raven,  waiting  for  him,  speculated  on  the  tone.  What 
did  it  mean?  It  was  a  breathless  tone,  though  not  in  any 
manner  like  the  woman's.  It  was  as  if  he  had  run  and 


90  OLD  CROW 

stumbled  and  caught  himself  up,  and  all  the  time  been 
strangled  from  within  by  rage  or  some  like  madness. 
The  woman's  breathlessness  had  simply  meant  life's  going 
out  of  her  with  sheer  fright.  Now  the  man  was  coming 
up  the  slope,  bent  at  the  shoulders,  as  if  he  carried  a 
heavy  load  or  as  if  almost  doubling  himself  helped  him  to 
go  the  faster.  He  was  a  thin  man  with  long  arms  and 
he  carried  an  axe.  Raven  called  to  him : 

"Hullo,  there !  Take  a  look  as  you  come  along  and  see 
if  you  can  find  my  knife." 

The  man  stopped  short,  straightened,  and  looked  at 
him.  Meantime  Raven,  bending  in  his  search,  went  toward 
him,  scrutinizing  the  road  from  side  to  side.  He  had  a 
good  idea  of  the  fellow  in  the  one  glance  he  gave  him:  a 
pale,  thin  face,  black  eyes  with  a  strange  spark  in  them, 
a  burning  glance  like  the  inventor's  or  the  fanatic's,  and 
black  hair.  It  was  an  ascetic  face,  and  yet  there  was 
passion  of  an  unnamed  sort  ready  to  flash  out  and  do 
strange  things,  overthrow  the  fabric  of  an  ordered  life 
perhaps,  or  contradict  the  restraint  of  years.  He  stood 
motionless  until  Raven,  still  searching,  had  got  within 
three  feet  of  him.  Then  he  spoke: 

"Who  be  you?" 

He  had  a  low  voice,  agreeable,  even  musical.  Raven 
concluded  he  must  have  been  strangely  moved  to  break 
into  that  mad  "Hullo."  It  had  been  more,  he  thought, 
that  wild  repetition  with  the  echo  throwing  it  back,  like 
the  Gabriel  hounds.  But  Raven  took  no  notice  of  the 
question.  He  spoke  with  a  calculated  peevishness. 

"I'm  willing  to  bet  my  knife  is  within  three  feet,  and  see 
how  the  confounded  thing's  hidden  itself.  It  was  right 
along  here.  Let  me  take  your  axe  and  I'll  blaze  a  tree." 

The  man,  without  a  word,  passed  him  the  axe  and 
Raven  notched  a  sapling.  Then,  still  holding  the  axe, 


OLD  CROW  91 

he  turned  to  the  man  with  a  smile.  No  one  had  ever 
told  him  what  a  charming  smile  it  was.  Anne  used  to 
wonder,  in  her  dignified  anguishes  of  love  forbidden,  if  she 
could  ever  make  him  understand  how  he  looked  when  he 
smiled. 

"Well,"  said  Raven,  "who  may  you  be?" 

"My  name's  Tenney,"  said  the  man,  in  the  low,  vibrant 
voice. 

"Oho !"  said  Raven,  remembering  Charlotte's  confi 
dences.  Then,  as  Tenney  frowned  slightly  and  glanced  at 
him  in  a  questioning  suspicion,  he  continued,  "Then  we're 
neighbors.  My  name's  Raven." 

The  man  nodded. 

"They  said  you  were  comin',"  he  remarked. 

He  held  out  his  hand  for  the  axe.  Raven,  loath  to 
give  it  to  him,  yet  saw  no  excuse  for  withholding  it.  After 
all,  she  was  safely  locked  in.  So  he  tossed  the  axe  and 
Tenney  caught  it  lightly,  and  was  turning  away.  But  he 
stopped,  considered  a  moment,  looking  down  at  the 
ground,  and  then,  evidently  concluding  the  question  had 
to  be  put,  broke  out,  and,  Raven  thought,  shamefacedly: 

"You  seen  anything  of  her  up  here?" 

"Her?"  Raven  repeated,  though  he  knew  the  country 
shyness  over  family  terms. 

"Yes.     My  woman." 

"Your  wife?"  insisted  Raven.  "I  don't  believe  I  know 
her.  No,  I'm  sure  I  don't.  I've  been  away  several  years. 
On  the  road,  you  mean?  No — not  a  soul." 

A  swift  rage  passed  over  Tenney's  face.  It  licked  it 
like  a  flash  of  evil  light  and  Raven  thought  he  saw  how 
dangerous  he  could  be. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  don't  mean  on  the  road.  I  mean  in 
the  woods." 

"Up  here?"  persisted  Raven.  "No,  certainly  not.     This 


92  OLD  CROW 

is  no  place  for  a  woman.  A  woman  would  have  to  be  off 
her  head  to  come  traipsing  up  here  in  the  snow.  Is  that 
what  you  were  yelling  about?  I  thought  you  were  a 
catamount,  at  least." 

He  laughed.  He  had  an  idea,  suddenly  conceived,  that 
the  man,  having  a  keen  sense  of  personal  dignity,  was  sub 
ject  to  ridicule,  and  that  a  laugh  would  be  salutary  for 
him.  And  he  was  right.  Tenney  straightened,  put  his 
axe  over  his  shoulder,  and  walked  away  down  the  hill. 


IX 


Raven  stood  looking  after  him  a  minute  and  then  began 
an  ostentatious  search  for  his  knife,  went  to  the  little  pile 
of  brush  and  saw  it — the  steel  tip  of  the  handle  shining 
there — and  pulled  the  brush  aside  to  get  it.  As  he  was 
rising  with  it  in  his  hand,  he  saw  Tenney  turn  and  look 
back  at  him.  He  held  up  the  knife  and  called: 

"I've  got  it." 

Tenney,  not  answering  even  by  a  sign,  went  on  over 
the  rise  and  disappeared  below.  Then  Raven,  after  lin 
gering  a  little  to  make  sure  he  did  not  reappear,  turned 
up  the  slope  and  into  the  path  at  the  left  and  so  came 
again  to  the  hut.  He  unlocked  the  door  and  went  in. 
She  was  sitting  by  the  fire  and  the  child  was  on  the  floor, 
staring  rather  vacuously  at  his  little  fingers,  as  if  they 
interested  him,  but  not  much.  The  woman  was  looking  at 
the  child,  but  only  in  a  mechanical  sort  of  way,  as  if  it 
were  her  job  to  look  and  she  did  it  without  intention  even 
when  the  child  was  safe.  But  she  was  also  watching  the 
door,  waiting  for  him ;  it  was  in  an  agony  of  expectation, 
and  her  eyes  questioned  him  the  instant  he  stepped  in. 

"Warm  enough?"  he  inquired,  as  incidentally,  he  hoped, 
as  if  it  were  not  unusual  to  find  her  here.  "Let  me  throw 
on  a  log." 

He  did  throw  on  two  and  the  fire  answered.  The  sol 
emn  child,  who  proved,  at  closer  view,  to  have  an  unusual 
beauty  of  pink  cheeks,  blue  eyes,  and  reddish  hair,  did  not 

93 


94  OLD  CROW 

intermit  his  serious  gaze  at  his  fingers.  When  Raven  had 
put  on  the  logs  and  dusted  himself  off,  he  found  himself 
at  a  loss.  How  should  he  begin?  Was  Tenney,  with  his 
catamount  jells  and  his  axe,  to  be  ignored  altogether,  or 
should  he  reassure  her  by  telling  her  the  man  had  gone? 
But  she  herself  began. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said,  in  the  eloquent  low  voice  that 
seemed  to  make  the  smallest  word  significant,  "you  think 
it's  funny." 

Raven  knew  what  sense  the  word  was  meant  to  convey. 

"No,"  he  said,  "not  in  the  least.  It's  pretty  bad  for 
you,  though,"  he  added  gravely,  on  second  thought  that 
he  might. 

She  made  a  little  gesture  with  her  hand.  It  was  a 
beautifully  formed  hand,  but  reddened  with  work.  The 
gesture  was  as  if  she  threw  something  away. 

"He  won't  hurt  me,"  she  said. 

"No,"  Raven  returned,  "I  should  hope  not." 

He  drew  up  a  chair  to  the  hearth  and  was  about  to  take 
it  when  she  spoke  again.  The  blood  ran  into  her  cheeks, 
as  she  did  it,  and  she  put  her  request  with  difficulty.  It 
seemed  to  Raven  that  she  was  suddenly  engulfed  in  shame. 

"Should  you  just  as  soon,"  she  asked,  "take  the  key 
inside  an'  lock  the  door?" 

She  put  it  humbly,  and  Raven  rose  at  once. 

"Of  course,"  he  said.     "Good  idea." 

He  locked  the  door  and  came  back  to  his  chair  and  she 
began,  never  omitting  to  share  her  attention  with  the 
child: 

"I  know  who  you  be.  It's  too  bad  this  has  come  upon 
you.  I'll  have  to  ask  you  not  to  let  it  go  any  further." 

Raven  was  about  to  assure  her  that  nothing  had  come 
upon  him,  and  then  he  bethought  himself  that  a  great 
deal  had.  She  had  looked  to  him  like  the  Mother  of  Sor- 


OLD  CROW  95 

rows  and,  though  the  shock  of  that  vision  was  over,  she 
seemed  to  him  now  scarcely  less  touching  in  her  beautiful 
maternity  and  her  undefended  state.  So  he  only  glanced 
at  her  and  said  gravely : 

"Nobody  will  know  anything  about  it  from  me.  After 
all" — he  was  bound  to  reassure  her  if  he  could — "I've 
nothing  to  tell." 

Her  face  flashed  into  an  intensity  of  revolt  against  any 
subterfuge,  the  matter  was  so  terrible. 

"Why,  yes,  you  have,"  said  she.  "Isr'el  Tenney  chased 
his  woman  up  into  the  woods  with  an  axe.  An'  you  heard 
him  yellin'  after  her.  That's  God's  truth." 

Raven  felt  rising  in  him  the  rage  of  the  natural  man,  a 
passion  of  protection  for  the  woman  who  is  invincibly 
beautiful  yet  physically  weak. 

"An',"  she  went  on,  "you  might  ha'  seen  him  out  there, 
axe  an'  all." 

"Oh,"  said  Raven,  as  if  it  were  of  no  great  account,  "I 
did  see  him." 

"O  my  soul!"  she  breathed.  "You  see  him?  I'm  glad 
you  come  in.  He  might  ha'  asked  you  if  you'd  seen  me." 

"He  did." 

This  was  a  new  terror  and  she  was  undone. 

"How'd  you  do  it?"  she  asked  breathlessly.  "You 
must  ha'  put  it  better'n  I  could  or  he'd  be  here  now." 

"I  didn't  'put  it,'  "  said  Raven,  easily.  "I  lied,  and  he 
went  off  down  the  hill." 

Extravagant  as  it  seemed,  he  did  get  an  impression, 
like  a  flash,  that  she  was  disappointed  in  him  because  he 
had  lied.  But  this  was  no  time  for  casuistry.  There  were 
steps  to  be  taken. 

"You  won't  go  back  to  him,"  he  said,  and  said  it 
definitively  as  if  it  were  a  matter  he  had  thought  out,  said 
it  like  a  command. 


96  OLD  CROW 

She  stared  at  him. 

"Not  go  back  to  him?"  she  repeated.  "Why,  I've  got 
to  go  back  to  him.  I've  got  to  go  home.  Where  do  you 
expect  I'm  goin',  if  I  don't  go  home?" 

"Haven't  you  any  people?"  Raven  asked  her.  "Can't 
you  go  to  them?" 

She  laughed  a  little,  softly,  showing  fine  white  teeth. 
The  spell  of  her  beauty  was  moving  to  him.  He  might 
never,  he  thought,  have  noticed  her  at  all  in  other  circum 
stances,  if  he  had  not  seen  her  there  in  the  woods  and  felt 
her  need  knock  at  his  heart  with  the  imperative  summons 
of  the  outraged  maternal.  Was  this  the  feeling  rising  in 
him  that  had  made  his  mother's  servitude  to  his  father 
so  sickening  in  those  years  gone  by?  Was  the  old  string 
still  throbbing?  Did  it  need  but  a  woman's  hand  to  play 
upon  it?  And  yet  must  he  not  have  noted  her,  wherever 
they  had  met?  Would  not  any  man? 

"I've  got  four  brothers,"  she  said.  "They'd  laugh  at 
me.  They'd  tell  me  I'd  married  well  an'  got  a  better 
home  than  any  of  them  could  scrape  together  if  they  be 
gun  at  the  beginnin'  an'  lived  their  lives  over.  There's 
nothin'  in  Isr'el  Tenney  to  be  afraid  of,  they'd  tell  me. 
And  there  ain't — for  them." 

"No,"  said  Raven  quietly.  He  felt  an  intense  desire  to 
feel  his  way,  make  no  mistakes,  run  no  risk  of  shutting  off 
her  confidence.  "It's  a  different  thing  for  you." 

Now  she  turned  her  face  more  fully  upon  him,  in  a 
challenging  surprise. 

"Why,"  she  said,  "I  ain't  afraid— except  for  him." 

By  the  smallest  motion  of  her  hand  she  indicated  the 
child,  who  was  now,  in  sudden  sleepiness,  toppling  back 
against  the  wall. 

"Put  him  up  here,"  said  Raven,  indicating  the  couch. 

He   opened   the  folded  rug  and  held  it  until  she  had 


OLD  CROW  97 

disposed  the  little  lax  figure  among  the  pillows.  Then 
she  took  the  rug  from  him  and  covered  the  child,  with 
quick,  capable  movements  of  her  beautiful  worn  hands. 
Raven,  watching  her,  felt  a  clutch  at  his  throat.  Surely 
there  was  nothing  in  the  known  world  of  plastic  action  so 
wonderful  as  these  movements  of  mothers'  hands  in  their 
work  of  easing  a  child.  With  a  last  quick  touch  on  the 
rug,  drawing  it  slightly  away  from  the  baby  cheek,  she 
returned  to  her  chair,  and  Raven  again  took  his.  He  was 
afraid  lest  she  repent  her  open-mindedness  toward  him 
and  talk  no  more.  But  she  was  looking  at  him  earnestly. 
It  was  evidently  a  part  of  her  precautionary  foresight 
that  he  should  know.  Did  she  think  he  could  help  her? 
His  blood  quickened  at  the  thought.  It  seemed  enough 
to  have  lived  for,  in  so  brutal  a  world.  She  veered  for 
a  moment  from  her  terror  to  the  necessity  for  justifying 
herself. 

"You  needn't  think,"  she  said,  almost  aggressively,  "I'd 
talk  to  everybody  like  this." 

He  was  holding  himself  down  to  a  moderation  he  knew 
she  wanted,  and  replied: 

"No,  of  course  not.     But  you  can  talk  to  me." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  can."  She  dismissed  that,  having 
said  it,  as  if  she  saw  no  need  of  finding  the  underlying 
reasons  they  were  both  going  by.  "You  see,"  she  said, 
"it's  the  baby.  When  he  gits  one  o'  them  spells,  it's 
the  baby  he  pitches  on." 

Raven  picked  out  from  her  confusion  of  pronouns  the 
fact  that  Tenney,  in  his  spells,  incredibly  threatened  the 
baby. 

"Don't  you  think,"  he  said,  "you  make  too  much  of  it — 
I  mean,  as  to  the  baby.  He  wouldn't  hurt  his  own  child." 

Again  the  blood  ran  into  her  cheeks,  and  she  looked  a 
suffering  so  acute  that  Raven  got  up  and  walked  through 


98  OLD  CROW 

the  room  to  the  window.  It  seemed  an  indecency  to  scan 
the  anguished  page  of  her  face. 

"That's  it,"  she  said,  in  a  strangled  voice.  "When 
he  has  his  spells  he  don't  believe  the  baby's  his." 

"God!"  muttered  Raven.  He  turned  and  came  back 
to  her.  "You  don't  mean  to  live  with  him,"  he  said. 
"You  can't.  You  mustn't.  The  man's  a  brute." 

She  was  looking1  up  at  him  proudly. 

"But,"  she  said,  "baby  is  his  own  child." 

"Good  God !  of  course  it  is,"  broke  out  Raven,  in  a 
fever  of  impatience.  "Of  course  it's  his  child.  You  don't 
need  to  tell  me  that." 

Then,  incredibly,  she  smiled  and  two  dimples  appeared 
at  the  corners  of  her  mouth  and  altered  her  face  from  a 
mask  of  tragic  suffering  to  the  sweetest  playfulness. 

"You  mustn't  say  'it,'  "  she  reproved  him.  "You  must 
say  'he.'  Anybody'd  know  you  ain't  a  family  man." 

Raven  stood  looking  at  her  a  moment,  his  own  smile 
coming.  Then  he  sat  down  in  his  chair.  He  wanted  to 
tell  her  how  game  she  was,  and  there  seemed  no  way  to 
manage  it.  But  now  he  could  ask  her  questions.  Her 
friendliness,  her  amazing  confidence,  had  opened  the  door. 

"Exactly  what  do  you  mean?"  he  asked,  yet  cautiously, 
for  even  after  her  own  avowals  he  might  frighten  her  off 
the  bough.  "Does  he  drink?" 

She  looked  at  him  reprovingly. 

"No,  indeed,"  she  said.     "He's  a  very  religious  man." 

"The  devil  he  is !"  Raven  found  himself  muttering, 
remembering  the  catamount  yells  and  the  axe.  "Then 
what,"  he  continued,  with  as  complete  an  air  as  he  could 
manage  of  taking  it  as  all  in  the  day's  work,  "what  do 
you  mean  by  his  spells?" 

She  was  silent  a  moment.  Her  mind  seemed  to  be  go 
ing  back. 


OLD  CROW  99 

"He  gits — mad,"  she  said  slowly.  "Crazy,  kind  of. 
It's  when  he  looks  at  baby  and  baby  looks  different  to 
him. 

"Different?    How  different?" 

"Why,"  she  said,  in  a  burst  of  pride  turning  for  an 
instant  to  the  little  figure  on  the  couch,  "baby's  got  awful 
cunnin'  little  ways.  An'  he's  got  a  little  way  o'  lookin' 
up  sideways,  kind  o'  droll,  an'  when  he  does  that  an'  Mr. 
Tenney  sees  it" — here  Raven  glanced  at  her  quickly,  won 
dering  what  accounted  for  her  being  so  scrupulous  with 
her  "Mr.  Tenney" — "he  can't  help  noticin'  it  an'  he  can't 
help  thinkin'  how  baby  ain't  colored  like  either  of  us — 
we're  both  dark " 

There  she  stopped,  at  last  in  irreparable  confusion,  and 
Raven  was  relieved.  How  could  he  let  her,  he  had  been 
thinking,  go  on  with  the  sordid  revelation?  When  he 
spoke,  it  was  more  to  himself  than  to  her,  but  conclusively  : 

"The  man's  a  beast." 

"No,  he  ain't,"  said  she  indignantly.  "Baby's  light 
complected.  You  see  he  is.  An'  I'm  dark  an'  so's  Mr. 
Tenney.  An'  I  told  him — I  told  him  about  me  before  we 
were  married,  an'  he  thought  he  could  stand  it  then.  But 
we  went  over  to  the  county  fair  an'  he  see — him.  He  come 
up  an'  spoke  to  him,  that  man  did,  spoke  to  us  both,  an' 
Mr.  Tenney  looked  at  him  as  if  he  never  meant  to  forgit 
him,  an'  he  ain't  forgot  him,  not  a  minute  since.  He's 
light  complected,  blue  eyes  an'  all.  An'  he  stood  there, 
that  man  did,  talkin'  to  us,  kinder  laughin'  an'  bein' 
funny,  an'  all  to  scare  me  out  o'  my  life  for  fear  o'  what 
he'd  say.  He  didn't  say  a  word  he  hadn't  ought  to,  an' 
when  he'd  had  his  joke  he  walked  off.  But  he  had  just 
that  way  o'  lookin'  up  kinder  droll,  an'  baby's  got  it. 
Mr.  Raven,  for  God's  sake  tell  me  why  my  baby's  got  to 
look  like  that  man?" 


100  OLD  CROW 

She  was  shaking  him  into  a  passion  as  unendurable  as 
her  own.  He  had  never  felt  such  pity  for  any  human 
being,  not  even  the  men  blinded  and  broken  in  the  War. 
And  he  understood  her  now.  Even  through  his  belief  in 
her,  that  sudden  belief  born  of  her  beauty  and  her  extrem 
ity,  he  had  been  amazed  at  her  accepting  him  so  abso 
lutely.  Now  he  saw.  He  was  her  last  hope  and  perhaps 
because  he  was  different  from  the  neighbors  to  whom  she 
could  not  speak,  she  was  throwing  herself  into  the  arms 
of  his  compassion.  And  she  had  to  hurry  lest  she  might 
not  see  him  again.  He  sat  there,  his  hands  clenched 
between  his  knees,  his  head  bent.  He  must  not  look  at 
her. 

"Poor  chap !"  he  said  finally,  his  altered  thoughts  now 
on  Tenney.  "He's  jealous." 

She  broke  into  a  sob  that  seemed  to  rend  her  and  then 
pulled  herself  up  and  sat  silent.  But  he  could  see,  from 
her  shadowy  outline  through  his  oblique  vision,  that  she 
was  shaking  horribly. 

"Can't  you,"  he  said,  "make  him  understand,  make 
him  see  how — how  tremendously  you  love  him?" 

That  was  pretty  mawkish,  he  thought,  as  he  said  it,  but 
he  meant  it,  he  meant  volumes  more.  Flood  the  man  with 
kindness,  open  the  doors  of  her  beauty  and  let  him  see 
how  really  incorruptible  she  was,  how  loyal,  how  wronged. 
For,  with  every  minute  of  her  company,  he  was  the  more 
convinced  of  her  inviolate  self.  Whatever  the  self  had 
been  through,  now  it  was  motherhood  incarnate.  What 
was  she  saying  to  this  last? 

"Be  nice  to  him?"  she  asked,  "that  kind  o'  way?"  And 
he  saw,  as  she  did,  that  he  had  meant  her  to  drown  the 
man's  jealous  passion  in  passion  of  her  own.  "He 
thinks,"  she  said  bitterly,  "that's  the  kind  o'  woman  I 


OLD  CROW  101 

Then  he  looked  with  her  upon  the  barricaded  road  of 
her  endeavor. 

"I  can't  even,"  she  said,  "have  the  house  pretty  when 
he  comes  home  an'  be  dressed  up  so's  he'll  have  a  pleasant 
evenin'  but  he  thinks — that's  the  kind  o'  woman  I  am." 
The  last  she  said  as  if  she  had  said  it  many  times  before 
and  it  held  the  concentrated  bitterness  of  her  hateful  life. 
"An',"  she  added,  turning  upon  him  and  speaking  fiercely, 
as  if  he  had  been  the  one  to  accuse  her,  "it's  true.  It  is 
the  kind  o'  woman  I  am.  An'  I  don't  want  to  be.  I  want 
to  set  down  with  my  sewin'  an'  watch  the  baby  playin' 
round.  What  is  it  about  me?  What  makes  'em  f oiler 
me  an'  offer  me  things  an'  try,  one  way  or  another,  to 
bring  me  down?  What  is  it?" 

She  was  panting  with  the  passion  of  what  seemed  an 
accusation  of  him  with  all  mankind.  He  added  one  more 
to  his  list  of  indictments  against  nature  as  God  had  made 
it.  Here  she  was,  a  lure,  innocent,  he  could  have  sworn, 
backed  up  against  the  defenses  of  her  ignorance,  and  the 
whole  machinery  of  nature  was  moving  upon  her,  seeking, 
with  its  multitudinous  hands,  to  pull  her  in  and  utilize 
her  for  its  own  ends. 

"Never  mind,"  he  said  harshly.  "Don't  try  to  under 
stand  things.  You  can't.  We  can't  any  of  us.  Only  I'll 
tell  you  how  you  looked  to  me,  that  first  minute.  You 
looked  like  the  Virgin  Mary,  Mother  of  Christ." 

She  shrank  a  little.  He  had  touched,  he  saw,  innocent 
prejudices. 

"Are  you  a  Roman  Catholic?"  she  asked. 

"No,"  he  said,  "not  that  nor  anything.  But  you  see 
how  good  you  looked  to  me.  It  doesn't  hurt  any  of  us  to 
be  Catholic,  if  we're  good." 

"I  didn't  mean  anything,"  she  said  humbly.  "Only 
there  ain't  many  round  here." 


10£  OLD  CROW 

"You  say  your  husband  is  religious.  Does  he  go  to 
church?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered  soberly,  and  also  with  a  kind  of 
wonder  at  a  man's  accomplishing  so  dull  an  observance. 
"We  go  twice  every  Sunday,  an'  Sunday  school  an'  evenin' 
meetin'  besides." 

"Do  you  like  it?" 

"No,"  she  said,  looking  rueful,  as  if  trusting  he  might 
forgive  her.  "I  git  sleepy." 

At  this  Raven  laughed  and  she  glanced  at  him  mildly, 
as  if  wondering  what  he  had  found  to  please  him.  He 
had  been  thinking. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "we  must  plan  what  you're  going  to 
do.  You  won't  let  me  send  you  and  the  baby  away  to 
stay  awhile?" 

She  shook  her  head. 

"Then  what  are  we  going  to  do?  Can't  you  let  me  go 
to  him  and  tell  him,  man  to  man,  what  an  infernal  fool 
he  is?" 

A  wild  alarm  flew  into  her  face. 

"No !  no !"  she  said. 

"What  is  going  to  happen?     You  can't  go  home." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  can,"  said  she.  "I  always  do.  It  works 
off.  Maybe  it's  worked  off  now.  He  gits  all  wore  out 
actin'  the  way  he  does,  an'  then  he's  terrible  scared 
for  fear  I've  made  way  with  myself,  an'  he's  all  bowed 
down." 

"Oh!"  said  Raven.  "And  you've  got  him  where  you 
want  him.  And  you  settle  down  and  wait  for  another 
spell.  How  long  do  you  generally  stay  away?" 

"Long's  I  can,"  she  answered  simply.  "Till  I'm  afraid 
baby'll  git  cold.  I  keep  his  little  things  where  I  can  ketch 
'em  up  an'  run.  But  sometimes  he  'most  gits  a  chill." 

The    yearning    of    anxiety    in    her   voice    was    intense 


OLD  CROW  103 

enough,  he  thought,  to  balance  the  grief  of  all  the  mothers 
bereft  by  Herod. 

"I  don't  see,"  he  said,  "how  you  get  up  here  anyway. 
You  must  come  by  the  road?  Why  doesn't  he  follow 
you?" 

The  slow  red  surged  into  her  face.  She  was  hesitat 
ing.  There  was  evidently  worse  to  come. 

"He  gits  so  mad."  she  said,  with  frequent  pauses  be 
tween  the  words,  "he  don't  stay  in  the  house  after  he's 
had  a  spell.  I  guess  he  don't  dare  to.  He's  afraid  of 
what  he'll  do.  He  goes  out  an'  smashes  away  at  the 
woodpile  or  suthin.'  An'  it's  then  I  ketch  up  the  baby  an' 
run.  I  go  out  the  side  door  an'  up  the  road  a  piece  an' 
into  the  back  road.  Then  I  come  down  the  loggin'  road 
the  back  way  an'  end  up  here.  It's  God's  mercy,"  she 
said  passionately,  "they've  broke  out  that  loggin'  road 
or  there  wouldn't  be  any  path  an'  he'd  see  my  tracks  in 
the  snow." 

"Then,"  said  Raven,  "if  he  has  sense  enough  to  go  and 
work  it  off  on  the  woodpile,  perhaps  you  aren't  in  any 
real  danger,  after  all." 

She  looked  at  him  piteously.  Her  eyes  narrowed  with 
a  frowning  return  to  a  scene  of  terror  past  and  persist 
ently  avoided  in  retrospect. 

"  'Most  always,"  she  said,  in  a  low  tone,  "it  comes  on 
him  ag'in,  an'  then,  'fore  you  know  it,  he's  back  in  the 
house.  Once  he  brought  the  axe  with  him.  Baby  was  in 
the  cradle.  The  cradle  head's  split  right  square  acrost." 

"Good  God !"  said  Raven.  "And  you  won't  let  me  send 
you  away  from  here?" 

"Why,  Mr.  Raven,"  said  she,  and  her  voice  was  only 
less  exquisite  in  its  tenderness  than  when  she  spoke  of  the 
baby,  "ain't  I  married  to  him  ?" 

They  sat  looking  at  each  other,  and  the  suffused  beauty 


104  OLD  CROW 

of  her  face  was  so  moving  to  him  that  he  got  up  and 
went  to  the  window  and  stared  out  at  the  tree  branches 
in  their  winter  calm.  He  made  himself  stand  there  look 
ing  at  them  and  thinking  persistently  of  them,  not  of  her, 
She  would  not  bear  thinking  of,  this  thing  of  beauty  and 
need  and,  at  the  same  time,  inexorability  of  endurance. 
Unless  she  would  let  him  help  her,  he  was  only  driving  the 
hot  ploughshare  of  her  misery  through  his  own  heart  for 
nothing.  So  he  stood  there,  mechanically  studying  the 
trees  and  remembering  how  they  would  wake  from  this 
frozen  calm  on  a  night  when  the  north  wind  got  at  them 
and  made  them  thrash  at  one  another  in  the  fury  of 
their  destiny.  Her  voice  recalled  him. 

"I  don't  mean,"  she  said,  "to  make  you  feel  bad.  I 
hadn't  ought  to  put  it  on  anybody  else's  shoulders,  any 
way." 

Then  Raven  realized  that  the  tenderness  in  her  voice 
was  for  him.  He  turned  and  came  back  to  his  place  by 
the  fire.  But  he  did  not  sit.  He  stood  looking  at  her 
as  she  looked  anxiously  up  at  him. 

"I'll  tell  you  what  we'll  do,"  he  said,  "for  the  present, 
anyway.  I'm  going  now,  and  you're  to  stay  here  as  long 
as  you  think  best.  When  you  go,  lock  the  door  and  put 
the  key  under  the  flat  stone  out  by  the  step.  I  often  leave 
the  key  there.  I'll  make  sure  the  stone  isn't  frozen  down. 
Now,  you  understand,  don't  you?  You're  to  come  up 
here  whenever  you  like.  If  there  isn't  a  fire,  you're  to 
build  one.  Nobody  will  disturb  you.  Jerry  won't  be 
cutting  up  here.  I'll  send  him  down  into  the  lower 
woods." 

"But,"  she  said,  in  evident  concern,  "I  can't  do  that. 
You  come  up  here  to  write  your  books.  Mr.  Tenney  said 
so,  when  he  was  tellin'  me  who  all  the  neighbors  were.  He 
said  you  had  the  shack  repaired  so's  to  write  your  books." 


OLD  CROW  105 

Raven  smiled.  Books  seemed  far  removed  from  this 
naked  face  of  life. 

"I'm  not  writing  books  now,"  he  said.  "I'm  just  hang 
ing  round.  I  may  go  over  and  see  your  husband,  ask  him 
to  do  some  work  for  me." 

The  quick  look  of  alarm  ran  into  her  face. 

"Oh,"  she  breathed,  "you  won't " 

"No,"  he  answered  steadily,  "I  won't  say  a  word  about 
you.  Of  course  I  sha'n't.  And  I  won't  to  anybody." 

"An',"  she  broke  in  tumultuously,  "if  you  should  see  me 
— oh,  it's  an  awful  thing  to  say,  after  what  you've  done 
for  me  this  day — but  you  won't  act  as  if  you  ever  see 
me  before?" 

That  was  the  only  wisdom,  Raven  saw,  but  a  band 
seemed  to  tighten  about  his  heart.  Deny  her  before  men, 
she  whom  he  had  not  yet  untangled  from  the  rapt  vision 
of  their  meeting? 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  won't  even  look  at  you.  Now  I'm 
going.  I'll  loosen  up  the  stone." 

She  rose  to  her  imposing  height  and  came  to  him  where 
he  stood,  his  hand  on  the  latch.  Her  eyes  brimmed.  In 
the  one  glance  he  had  of  her,  he  thought  such  extremity 
of  gratitude  might,  in  another  instant,  break  in  a  flood  of 
words. 

"Go  back,"  he  said,  "where  nobody  can  see  you  when  I 
open  the  door.  Jerry  may  have  taken  a  notion  to  come 
up." 

She  turned  obediently  and  he  did  not  look  at  her  again. 
He  opened  the  door  and  stepped  out.  The  stone  was 
there  beside  the  larger  one  below  the  sill.  He  bent  and 
wrenched  it  up  from  the  ground  where  the  frost  was  hold 
ing  it,  and  with  such  unregarding  force  that  the  edges 
hurt  his  hands.  He  smiled  a  little  at  the  savage  satisfac 
tion  of  the  act,  wondering  if  this  was  how  Tenney  felt 


106  OLD  CROW 

when  he  smashed  away  at  the  wood.  Then  he  remembered 
that  the  key  was  inside,  tapped  on  the  door,  opened  it 
and  spoke  to  her: 

"You'd  better  lock  the  door.     Keep  it  locked  till  you 

go-" 

She  was  sitting  before  the  fire,  her  head  bent  almost  to 
her  knee,  her  face  in  her  hands.  He  closed  the  door  and 
waited  until  he  heard  her  step  and  the  turning  of  the  key. 
Then  he  strode  out  into  the  logging  road  and  down  the 
slope.  One  certainty  surged  and  trembled  in  him :  that  he 
had  never  been  so  sorry  for  anybody  in  his  life. 


Raven,  determinedly  shedding  his  emotion,  plunged  fast 
down  the  hill  and  into  the  house  where  Charlotte  was 
busy  in  a  steam  of  fragrances  from  stove  and  cooking 
table  and  Jerry  sat  smoothing  an  axe  helve. 

"See  here,"  said  Raven,  pulling  off  his  gloves  and  ad 
vancing  to  the  stove,  where  Jerry,  looking  mildly  up, 
made  room  for  him,  "are  you  thinning  out  up  on  the 
ridge?" 

Jerry  nodded. 

"That's  what  you  wrote,"  said  he. 

"I've  changed  my  mind,"  said  Raven.  "It  looks  mighty 
well  up  there  as  it  is,  for  the  present,  anyway.  Didn't 
you  say  there  was  a  lot  of  gray  birch  that  needed  to  go 
down  in  the  river  pasture?" 

Again  Jerry  nodded,  and  Charlotte,  evidently  not  find 
ing  this  definite  enough,  put  in : 

"Why,  yes,  Jerry,  seems  to  me  you  said  so.  'Twas  in 
that  letter  you  had  me  write." 

"Well,"  said  Raven,  "I  want  you  to  get  at  the  river 
woods.  I  want  'em  cleaned  up.  Couldn't  you  get  some 
body  to  help  you?  That  man  Tenney,  how  about  him?" 

Jerry,  confronted  by  haste  and  emergency,  two  flying 
visitants  he  never  could  encounter  adequately,  opened  his 
mouth  and  looked  at  Charlotte. 

"Why,  yes,"  said  she.  "He's  a  great  hand  to  work. 
You  said  so  yourself,  Jerry,  only  last  week." 

107 


108  OLD  CROW 

"Then  what  if  we  should  hire  him?"  said  Raven.  "What 
if  I  should  go  up  and  ask  him  now?" 

Jerry  was  slowly  coming  to. 

"He's  been  by  here  to-day,"  said  he,  "axe  in  his  hand. 
Went  as  if  he's  sent  for.  Then  he  went  back." 

"Well,  that  was  an  hour  or  more  ago,"  said  Charlotte. 
"You  says  to  me,  'Where's  he  be'n?'  says  you.  Yes,  he's 
got  home  long  'fore  this.  You'll  find  him  some'r's  round 
home." 

"All  right,"  said  Raven.  "Don't  go  up  on  the  ridge 
again,  Jerry.  I  want  it  left  as  it  is." 

He  hurried  out  through  the  shed  and  Charlotte  and 
Jerry  exchanged  glances,  his  entirely  bemused  and  she 
sympathetically  tender. 

"  'Course  he  don't  want  you  cuttin'  on  the  ridge,"  she 
said.  "He's  goin'  up  there  to  write  his  books.  I  should 
think  you  could  see  that." 

For  Charlotte,  when  no  third  person  was  by  to  observe 
Jerry's  sloth  at  the  uptake,  had  methods  of  her  own  to 
keep  him  mentally  alive.  If  he  did  lag  a  pace  behind,  it 
was  his  secret  and  hers,  and  sometimes,  between  them 
selves,  it  was  wholesome  to  recognize  it. 

Raven  walked  at  top  speed.  He  could  not,  at  his  ut 
most,  get  to  Tenney  soon  enough.  It  was  true,  he  was 
under  vow  not  to  assault  or  accuse  him,  but  it  seemed  to 
him  the  wroman  would  not  be  even  intermittently  safe  un 
less  the  man  were  under  his  eye.  As  the  picture  of  her 
flashed  again  to  his  mind,  sitting  by  his  hearth,  her  head 
bowed  in  grief  unspeakable,  he  wondered  what  he  should 
call  her.  Surely  not,  in  his  rage  against  Tenney,  by  Ten- 
ney's  name.  She  was  "the  woman,"  she  was  the  pitiful 
type  of  all  suffering  womanhood. 

There  was  the  house,  rather  narrow  in  build,  but  painted 
white,  with  green  blinds.  The  narrowness  gave  it  a  look 


OLD  CROW  109 

of  unwelcoming  meagerness,  this  although  it  was  of  a 
good  size.  Raven  wondered  why  some  minds  ran  to 
pointed  roofs,  inhospitable  to  the  eye.  This  looked  to 
him  like  Tenney,  his  idea  of  him.  The  barn  was  spacious, 
and  beautiful  in  silver  gray,  and  the  woodpile,  Raven  de 
cided  ironically,  a  marvel  of  artistic  skill.  He  had  never 
seen  such  a  big  woodpile,  so  accurately  trimmed  at  the 
corners,  so  perfect  in  the  face  of  an  extended  length.  It 
must,  he  judged,  represent  a  good  many  hours  of  jealous 
madness,  if  it  was  entirely  the  product  of  those  outbreaks 
when  Tenney  went  out  to  smash  wood.  And  there,  round 
one  corner  of  the  pile,  was  Tenney  himself.  Raven  real 
ized  that  he  had  not  expected  to  find  him.  Actually  he 
had  believed  the  man  was  raging  over  snowy  hillsides 
somewhere  about,  armed  with  his  axe  and  uttering  those 
catamount  cries.  Tenney  was  not  at  work.  He  was 
standing  perfectly  still,  looking  up  the  road. 

"Hullo !"  called  Raven,  turning  into  the  yard,  and  the 
man  jerked  back  a  step  and  then  stopped  and  awaited 
him. 

It  was  not  a  step  actually.  His  feet  did  not  leave  the 
ground.  He  merely,  his  whole  body,  seemed  thrown  out 
of  position,  to  recover  instantly.  Raven,  watching  him 
as  he  traversed  the  few  steps  between  them,  decided  that 
he  was  uncontrollably  nervous,  frightened,  too,  perhaps, 
at  what  his  apprehensive  mind  pictured :  and  that  was 
good  for  him.  What  was  Tenney,  according  to  his  look? 
Raven,  scrutinizing  him  as  he  approached,  determined  to 
know  something  more  than  he  had  caught  from  those  pre 
occupied  minutes  in  the  woods.  How,  if  he  had  his  pen 
in  hand,  would  he  describe  Israel  Tenney  for  one  of  the 
folk  tales  Anne  had  so  persistently  urged  him  to?  A 
thin,  tall  man  with  narrow  shoulders  and  yet  somehow 
giving  an  impression  of  great  wiry  strength.  He  had  a 


110  OLD  CROW 

boldly  drawn  line  of  profile,  hair  black  and  glossy  and, 
as  Raven  saw  with  distaste,  rather  long  under  his  hat,  ver 
tical  lines  marking  his  cheeks,  lines  deeper  than  seemed 
justified  by  his  age,  and,  as  he  had  noted  before,  his  eyes 
were  also  black  with  a  spark  in  them.  What  was  the 
spark?  It  was,  Raven  concluded  again,  in  this  quick 
scrutiny,  like  that  in  the  eyes  of  inventors  and  visionaries. 
He  wore  clothes  so  threadbare  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  must 
have  been  cold.  But  they  were  patched  with  a  scrupu 
lous  nicety  that  made  some  revulsion  in  Raven  rise  up  and 
dramatically  spur  him  to  a  new  resentment.  She  had 
patched  them.  Her  faithful  needle  had  spent  its  art  on 
this  murderer  of  her  peace.  He  had  reached  the  woodpile 
now  and  Tenney  came  a  step  forward. 

"Great  woodpile  you've  got  here,"  said  Raven. 

Tenney  put  out  his  hand  and  rested  it  on  one  of  the 
sticks.  He  might  have  been  caressing  a  pet  dog. 

"Stove  wood  length,"  he  said  briefly.  Then  he  seemed 
to  feel  some  curiosity  over  being  sought  out  after  their 
meeting  on  the  rise  and  asked:  "D'you  find  your  knife?" 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Raven.  "Didn't  you  see  me  hold  it 
up  to  you?" 

Tenney  nodded,  frowning.  He  seemed  to  conclude  he 
was  giving  himself  away,  showing  more  interest  in  the 
stranger  than  the  stranger  had  in  any  way  earned.  But 
he  asked  another  question.  It  leaped  from  him.  He  had 
to  ask  it. 

"D'you  see  anybody  up  round  there  after  I  come 
down?" 

Raven  shook  his  head,  looking,  he  hoped,  vague. 

"I  came  down  myself,"  he  said.  "I  had  to  talk  with 
Jerry  about  his  thinning  out." 

The  eagerness  faded  from  Tenney's  face. 

"I   didn't   see   Jerry   up    there    this    mornin',"  he    vol- 


OLD  CROW  111 

unteered,  in  an  indifferent  contribution  toward  the 
talk. 

"No,"  said  Raven.  "You  won't  see  him  up  there  at 
all  after  this — for  a  spell,  that  is.  I  write,  you  know, 
books.  I  like  to  go  up  to  the  hut  to  work.  Not  so  likely 
to  be  interrupted  there.  I  don't  want  chopping  going 
on." 

Tenney,  with  a  quick  lift  of  the  head,  looked  at  him 
questioningly.  Raven  saw  anger  also  in  the  look,  at  last 
anger  ready  to  spring.  Both  men  had  the  same  thought. 
Tenney  wondered  if  the  owner  of  the  wood  was  going  to 
taunt  him  again  with  3'elling  like  a  catamount,  and  Raven 
did  actually  put  aside  an  impulse  toward  it. 

"D'you  come  over  here  to  forbid  my  goin'  up  in  your 
woods?"  Tenney  inquired. 

"No,"  said  Raven.  "I  came  to  ask  you  if  you  could 
help  Jerry  do  some  thinning  out  in  the  river  pasture. 
I'm  rather  in  a  hurry  about  that." 

"Why,  yes,"  Tenney  began.  Then  he  added  breath 
lessly,  as  if  another  part  of  his  mind  (the  suffering,  un 
controlled  part)  broke  in  on  his  speech:  "Not  yet,  though. 
I  can't  do  anything  yet,  not  till  I  see  how  things  turn." 

Raven  thought  he  understood.  Tenney  could  settle  to 
nothing  until  he  knew  when  his  wife  was  coming  back  or 
whether  she  was  coming  at  all.  Now  that  the  vision  of 
her  had  entered  on  their  stage,  he  was  conscious  of  an 
swering  coldly  : 

"All  right.  You  can  make  up  your  mind  and  go  over 
and  see  Jerry.  He'll  arrange  it  with  you." 

On  these  words,  he  was  about  turning  away,  when  he 
found  Tenney  suddenly  oblivious  of  him.  The  man's  thin 
face  was  quivering  into  a  pathetic  disorder,  flushed,  quite 
beyond  his  control.  He  neither  heard  Raven  nor  saw  him, 
though  he  did  speak  brokenly : 


112  OLD  CROW 

"There !"  he  said.    "There  she  is  now." 

Raven,  turning,  followed  his  gaze,  directed  up  the  road, 
not  the  way  he  had  come.  There  she  was,  walking  toward 
them  with  swift,  long  steps,  the  child  held  with  the  firm 
ness  that  still  seemed  a  careless  buoyancy,  as  he  had  seen 
her  in  the  woods.  She  had  come  home,  as  she  went,  the 
back  way.  Raven  could  have  stood  there  through  the 
long  minute,  motionless,  waiting  for  her  to  come  to  him, 
for  it  seemed  as  if  it  were  to  him  she  came,  not  Tenney. 
But  he  recalled  himself  with  a  brusqueness  so  rough  and 
sudden  that  it  was  as  if  he  gave  himself  a  blow.  That  last 
glance  had  shown  him  she  had  nothing  more  to  fear  from 
Tenney,  for  this  time  at  least.  The  man  had  been  hor 
ribly  frightened  at  her  going.  Now  he  was  under  her  heel. 
Raven  did  not  give  her  another  look.  He  turned  home 
ward,  and  called  back  to  Tenney  loudly  enough  for  her 
to  overhear  him  and  be  under  no  apprehension  as  to  what 
had  passed: 

"Make  up  your  mind,  then  come  and  talk  it  over  with 
Jerry.  It's  chopping,  you  understand,  gray  birches  down 
in  the  river  pasture." 

Tenney  did  not  answer,  and  Raven,  striding  along  the 
road,  listened  with  all  possible  intentness  to  hear  whether 
husband  and  wife  spoke  together.  He  thought  not,  but 
he  did  hear  the  closing  of  a  door. 


XI 

Thyatira — this  was  her  name,  and  she  was  called  Tira 
— passed  her  husband  apparently  without  a  glance.  Nev 
ertheless  she  had,  in  approaching,  become  adequately 
aware  of  his  disordered  look,  and  the  fact  of  it  calmed  her 
to  a  perfect  self-possession.  She  could  always,  even  from 
one  of  these  fleeting  glimpses,  guess  at  the  stage  his  mad 
man's  progress  had  reached,  and  the  present  drop  in 
temperature  restored  her  everyday  sense  of  safety.  With 
it  came  a  sudden  ebbing  of  energy  and  endurance.  The 
"spell"  was  over  for  the  time,  but  her  escape  from  the 
shadow  of  it  left  her  nerveless  and  almost  indifferent  to 
its  returning;  apathetic,  too,  to  her  tormentor.  Going  in, 
she  closed  the  door  behind  her,  apparently  not  noticing 
that  he  followed  her,  and  when  he  opened  it  and- came  in, 
she  was  sitting  in  his  great  chair  by  the  fire,  taking  off 
the  baby's  coat,  and,  with  the  capable,  anxious  mother 
motion,  feeling  the  little  hands.  Tenney  came  up  to  her 
and  the  child,  turning  at  his  step,  looking  up  at  him  sol 
emnly.  Tira's  heart  seemed  to  contract  within  her.  This 
was  the  very  glance,  "lookin'  up  kinder  droll,"  that  had 
brought  on  the  storm.  But  for  Tenney  it  evidently 
meant  something  now  that  fitted  his  mood  of  passionate 
anxiety  to  get  back  into  the  warm  security  of  domestic 
peace. 

"You  lemme  take  him,"  he  said,  "whilst  you  git  off 
your  things.  You'll  ketch  your  death  o'  cold,  carryin' 


113 


OLD  CROW 

The  last  he  had  to  add.  She  was,  his  defensive  inner 
mind  told  him,  all  wrong  in  flying  out  of  the  house  "like 
a  crazed  creatur'  "  when  she  might  have  stayed  and  told 
him,  just  told  him,  whether  she  was  the  kind  of  woman 
he,  at  these  unheralded  mad  moments,  thought  she  was. 
That  was  the  undercurrent  always  in  his  mind:  if  she 
wouldn't  be  so  still  and  hateful,  if  she  would  only  tell  him. 
She  might  have  some  pity  on  a  man,  that  defensive  inner 
mind  advised  him,  when  she  saw  him  all  worked  up.  But 
the  minute  he  warned  her  the  devil  of  doubt  was  again 
tempting  him,  she  began  to  freeze  up  and  wouldn't  speak 
to  him  at  all.  No  wonder,  with  that  devil  inside  whisper 
ing  to  him  and  hounding  him  on — no  wonder  he  said 
things  and — he  trembled  here  and  dared  not  follow  out 
that  thought — and  was  afraid  he  might  do  things.  But 
she  shook  her  head,  at  his  offer  of  taking  the  child. 

"You  might  go  an'  cut  a  slice  o'  ham,"  she  said  wearily. 
"It's  'most  dinner  time.  We  might  's  well  have  that  as 
anything." 

But  the  baby  reached  out  and  closed  his  little  fingers 
about  Tenney's  thumb.  Tenney  stood  there,  his  heart 
swelling  within  him  at  the  contrast  between  the  child's 
forgivingness  and  her  cruelty.  Now  she  had  the  child's 
outer  things  off,  and  she  rose  with  them  in  one  hand, 
carrying  the  child  on  the  other  arm,  and  it  was  her  move 
ment  that  dragged  the  little  fingers  away  and  broke  that 
significant  clasp  on  Tenney's  thumb.  How  hateful  she 
could  be,  he  thought,  his  heart  swelling  more  and  more. 
He  stood  where  she  left  him,  and  she  went  to  the  low 
couch  and  set  the  baby  down  there,  and  put  into  his  hand 
a  formless  doll  she  wanted  him  to  love.  He  never  really 
noticed  it,  but  she  felt  he  would  sometime  love  the  doll. 
Then  she  glanced,  with  the  air  of  being  recalled  to  a 
wearisome  routine,  at  the  table  in  the  middle  of  the  floor; 


OLD  CROW  115 

it  meant  ham  and  eggs.  It  seemed  also  to  occur  to  her 
that  she  had  not  taken  off  her  cloak,  and  she  hung  it  on 
its  nail  behind  the  door.  Soon,  as  Tenney,  still  motion 
less  there  by  the  stove,  seemed  mutely  accusing  her,  mutely 
imploring  her  not  to  be  cruel,  she  did  turn  and  look  at 
him.  The  thought  of  Raven  was  uppermost  in  her  mind. 
It  had  been  there  every  minute  since  she  had  gone  into  his 
house  in  the  woods,  but  now  it  roused  compellingly, 
stronger  than  even  her  present  apprehension.  Most 
of  all,  she  was  penetrated  by  a  wonder  almost  greater 
than  any  emotion  she  had  ever  felt,  at  having  laid  before 
him  at  once  and  without  persuasion,  the  story  of  her  life. 
Why  should  she  have  told  him?  She  would  have  said  no 
decent  woman  could  betray  her  husband  to  another  man. 
It  was  entirely  mysterious,  and  she  gave  it  up.  But  there 
was,  behind  the  wonder,  a  dazzling  sense  that  he  was  dif 
ferent.  As  he  had  told  her  that  strange  thing  she  hardly 
dared  think  of  now,  because  it  seemed  as  if  she  must  have 
misunderstood  him — the  thing  about  her  looking  so  good 
and  wonderful  when  he  came  upon  her — so  he,  in  his  kind 
ness  and  compassion,  his  implication  of  assuming  a  mys 
terious  responsibility  for  her,  seemed  unbelievably  good, 
not  a  citizen  of  this  bleak  neighborhood — or  even  the 
world  (her  mind,  though  stumfblingly,  ran  as  far  as  that) 
and,  more  astounding  still,  the  real  miracle  was  that  he 
had  been  sent  for  this :  to  save  her.  And  at  that  moment 
of  dazed  reflection,  it  all  meant  the  passionate  necessity  of 
obeying  him.  He  had  bade  her  show  her  husband  how 
she  loved  him.  Seeing  the  man  was  jealous,  he  had 
pitied  him.  Perhaps  she  had  not  thought,  since  these  last 
apprehensive  days  with  Tenney,  whether  she  loved  him 
or  not.  He  had  simply,  at  the  times  of  recurrent  tragedy, 
been  the  terror  within  the  house,  and  she  had  lived  a  life 
of  breathless  consecration  to  the  one  task  of  saving  the 


116  OLD  CROW 

child.  Did  she  love  him?  Raven  had  assumed  she  did,  and 
in  her  devotion  to  him  she  must,  in  some  form,  obey.  Al 
most  it  seemed  to  her  there  would  be  shame  in  not  loving 
her  husband,  if  Raven  expected  it  of  her.  None  of  these 
things  were  formulated  in  her  mind.  They  were  only 
shadowy  impulses,  like  the  forces  of  nature,  persuading, 
impelling  her.  She  had  no  words ;  she  had  scarcely,  as  to 
the  abstractions  she  dimly  felt  and  never  saw,  any  reasoned 
thought.  But  she  did  have  an  unrecognized  life  of  the 
emotions,  and  this  was  surging  in  her  now. 

She  stood  for  a  second  looking  at  Tenney,  the  distended 
beauty  of  her  eyes  like  a  question,  a  challenge.  She 
seemed,  though  this  neither  of  them  could  know,  to  be 
beseeching  him  to  tell  her  what  treatment  he  deserved  of 
her,  or  what  would  make  their  case  whole.  They  were 
simple  people,  these  two,  but  she  had  leaped,  without 
knowing  it  herself,  to  a  new  plane  of  life.  She  was  still 
with  Raven  in  the  hut,  trying  to  speak  his  language,  fol 
low  out  his  thought  for  her.  She  gave  a  little  quick  rush 
across  the  room  and,  to  Tenney's  overwhelming  surprise, 
her  hands  were  on  his  shoulders,  her  face  so  close  to  his 
that  her  sweet  breath  fanned  him.  He  had  never  seen 
her  so.  She  had  to  be  pursued,  coaxed,  tired  out  with 
persuasion  before  she  would  even  accept  the  warmth  he 
too  often  had  for  her. 

"Isr'el,"  she  said,  "Isr'el  Tenney !  if  you  ever  ag'in, 
so  long  as  you  live,  think  wrong  o'  that  baby  there,  you'll 
be  the  wickedest  man  on  God's  earth." 

His  arms  closed  about  her  and  she  stood  passive.  Yet 
she  wanted  to  free  herself.  Did  she  love  him?  The  ques 
tion  Raven  had  seemed  to  illuminate  kept  beating  on  in 
her  tired  head.  Did  she  love  him?  And  as  Tenney's 
arms  clung  closer  and  his  lips  were  on  hers,  she  threw 
back  her  head  and  cried  violently : 


OLD  CROW 

"No,  I  don't." 

"Don't  what?"  he  asked,  releasing  her  slightly,  and  she 
drew  away  from  him  and,  still  obeying  Raven,  made  one 
disordered  effort  at  assurance. 

"If  you  think" — here  she  stopped.  She  could  not 
go  on.  It  had  always  seemed  to  her  a  wrong  to  the 
baby  to  put  the  vile  suspicion  into  words.  "If  you 
think,"  she  tried  again,  "what  you  said  this  mornin' — 
O  Isr'el,  I've  been  as  true  to  you  as  you  are  to  your 
God." 

He  was  religious,  she  often  told  herself,  chiefly  in  her 
puzzled  musings  after  a  "spell"  was  over,  and  this  was 
the  strongest  vow  she  could  imagine.  But  it  disconcerted 
him. 

"There!  there!"  he  said.     "Don't  say  such  things." 

Evidently  the  name  of  God  was  for  Sundays.  But  he 
was  uneasily  reassured.  He  was,  at  least,  in  a  way  of 
sense,  delighted.  He  put  his  face  to  hers  and  thickly  bade 
her  kiss  him.  He  was  not  for  the  moment  horrible  to  her 
unconsenting  will.  Rather  she  found  herself  rejoicing. 
When  she  could  escape  from  him  (and  she  felt  no  fear, 
her  wild  belief  in  herself  was  so  great)  she  thought  she 
could  dance  and  sing.  For  now  she  knew  she  did  not 
love  him,  and  it  made  her  feel  so  free.  Always  there  had 
been  some  uneasy  bond,  first  with  the  man  who  cajoled 
her  to  her  heart-break  and  the  miserable  certainty  that, 
whatever  magic  was  in  a  good  name,  it  was  hers  no  more, 
and  then  with  Tenney,  whom  she  had  followed  humbly, 
gratefully,  because  he  had  been  so  kind  and  told  her 
nothing  mattered  if  she  would  marry  him.  But  now 
she  felt  a  sudden  snapping  of  the  bond  and  she  knew 
that,  in  her  mind,  at  least,  in  her  moments  of  solitude 
with  the  baby,  she  could  dance  upon  the  hills  of  life.  It 
was  an  entirely  new  sense  of  ecstasy,  a  thrilling  of  her 


118  OLD  CROW 

blood.  She  laughed  out,  a  low,  excited  laugh,  and  put 
him  from  her  and  called  gaily : 

"You  slice  the  ham,  an'  I'll  git  out  some  eggs." 

Tenney  stared  at  her  a  minute,  perplexed  and  wonder 
ing.  Then  his  face  relaxed  slightly.  It  might  have  been 
said  he  smiled.  There  was  apparently  a  good  feeling  in 
the  house,  such  as  he  had  never  been  able  to  create.  She 
had  always  been  kind,  conformable,  but  she  had  never 
laughed  like  this,  nor  in  his  sight  taken  up  the  baby  and 
tossed  him  until  he,  too,  laughed  gurglingly.  She  cooked 
the  dinner  and  Tenney,  not  able  to  take  himself  out  of  her 
bewildering  presence,  hung  about  and  watched  her  and, 
when  the  baby  began  to  fret  for  food,  took  him  up  and 
walked  with  him  until  Tira  was  free.  And  while  they 
ate  dinner  the  baby  slept  again  on  the  lounge:  for  the 
cradle,  grim  witness  Tenney  could  not  bring  himself  to 
look  at  now,  had  been  moved  into  the  bedroom. 

"D'you  see  that  feller  jest  goin'  when  you  come  into 
the  yard?"  Tenney  asked  her,  when  his  first  hunger  was 
over  and  he  leaned  back  in  his  chair  to  look  at  her  where 
she  sat,  only  picking  at  her  food,  he  thought  anxiously. 
She  seemed  queer  to  him  to-day,  with  the  rapt,  exalted 
look  of  one  who  had  seen  strange  things  and  been  tired 
by  them,  the  tremulous  eloquence  of  her  lips.  She  was, 
he  owned  to  himself,  yet  not  with  any  satisfaction, 
because  any  smallest  allurement  in  her  lessened  his 
chance  of  keeping  her  faith  inviolate,  a  likely  looking 
woman. 

"I  wish,"  he  said  irritably,  out  of  his  uneasiness  over 
her,  "you'd  eat  suthin.'  You're  all  beat  out." 

She  smiled  at  him.  She  felt  kindly  toward  him  as  to  a 
part  of  the  world  that  had  at  least  begun  to  show  its 
softer  side  to  her. 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  ain't  beat  out." 


OLD  CROW  119 

"D'you  sec  him?"  he  pursued,  his  thoughts  recurring  to 
Raven. 

"Yes,"  she  responded,  in  a  low  tone,  "I  see  him." 

"  'Twas  Raven.  You  knew  he  was  comin'  up  to  stay  a 
spell.  Don't  ye  remember  I  see  Jerry  an'  he  told  me? 
He  wants  me  to  go  down  in  his  river  pastur',  choppin'. 
All  of  a  whew  to  git  at  it.  Jest  like  them  city  folks.  If 
a  thing  comes  into  their  head,  they'll  shake  the  foot 
stool  but  they'll  git  it." 

"Yes,"  said  Tira.     "I  think  's  likely." 

She  got  up  to  bring  the  pie,  warming  in  the  oven,  and 
when  her  back  was  toward  him  she  allowed  herself  a  smile, 
happy,  unrestrained,  at  Raven's  thought  for  her.  She 
knew  why  Tenney  was  to  be  drawn  off  down  to  the 
river  pasture.  This  was  a  part  of  Raven's  understanding 
and  his  beneficence. 

"You  goin'  ?"  she  asked,  returning  to  her  chair. 

"Yes,"  said  Tenney.     "Might  's  well." 

When  he  had  eaten  he  went  out  to  his  chores  and 
she  cleared  the  table  and  walked  about  the  house  with  a 
light  step.  She  had  been  working  heavily  of  late,  with  a 
dull  mind,  but  now  there  seemed  to  be  a  reason  for  doing 
every  task  as  perfectly  as  it  could  be  done.  There  was 
not  a  suspicion  in  her  mind  that  Raven  had  a  charm  for 
her  or  that  she  could  possibly  have  a  charm  for  him. 
He  had  simply  opened  a  window  for  the  light  to  come 
in;  he  had  shown  her  the  door  of  escape.  This  was  the 
first  simple  kindness  she  had  ever  had.  When  she  was 
little,  the  family  life  had  been  a  disorderly  struggle  for 
bare  existence,  and  as  she  grew  into  an  ignorant  girlhood 
she  began  to  be  angrily  conscious  that  she  herself,  she  who 
did  not  recognize  the  power  of  her  own  beauty  and  with 
it  the  strange  force  that  lay  beneath  it,  like  a  philter,  for 
man's  undoing,  was  an  object  of  pursuit  by  men  made 


120  OLD  CROW 

mad  through  passions  she  hated.  She  had  the  simplest 
tastes,  the  most  inconsiderable  desires.  She  would  go 
cff  by  herself  then  and  spend  a  day  wandering  about 
the  woods,  cooling  her  feet  in  brooks,  sleeping  under  a 
tree.  No  man  could  make  her  happiness  completer,  hang 
ing  about  her  steps,  staring  her  down  with  bold,  impu 
dent  eyes.  She  even  thought,  in  a  formless  way  (for 
she  had  no  orderly  inner  life  of  wonder  and  conclusion) 
whether  she  should  have  taken  refuge  with  the  light- 
haired  man  who  was  now  driving  Tenney  to  madness,  if 
he  had  not  had  that  drollery  of  looking  at  you,  like  a 
boy  really,  who  cared  only  for  a  boy's  fitful  fun.  But 
he  wras  not  kind.  The  kindness  had  been  only  to  lure  her 
into  trusting  him,  just  as  Tenney 's  had  turned  into  a 
rage  of  abusive  jealousy.  Raven's  kindness  was  differ 
ent.  It  was  not  in  any  degree  personal  to  her.  She  knew 
he  would  have  been  as  merciful  to  a  squirrel  caught  in 
a  trap.  And  the  scars  of  his  own  mental  sufferings  and 
restraints  had  done  something  to  him,  something  inex 
plicable  that  made  him  wonderful  in  her  eyes.  He  seemed, 
too,  all-powerful.  He  was  that  miraculous  combina 
tion  of  the  human  guide  and  heavenly  helper,  with  the 
wisdom  to  understand  earthly  trouble  and  the  power  to 
administer  what  remedy  there  might  be. 

Tenney  did  not  come  in  until  supper  time.  He  had 
been  over  to  Raven's,  he  told  her,  and  seen  Jerry  about 
the  chopping.  They  were  going  in  the  morning  early. 
She  made  no  reply.  She  was  still  at  peace  in  the  thought 
of  Raven's  kindness,  but  the  turmoil  of  the  day  had  told 
on  her,  and  she  was  so  tired  that  she  could  scarcely  drag 
herself  about ;  her  eyes  kept  closing  as  she  moved.  Ten 
ney  was  still  expectantly  eager  for  an  awakening  of  her 
leniency.  At  eight  o'clock  he  brought  out  the  Bible  and 
stiffened  himself  into  the  rigidity  that  was  the  mail  for 


OLD  CROW  121 

his  spiritual  combats.  He  was  always  referring  to  him 
self,  at  these  times  of  religious  observance,  as  a  servant 
of  the  Cross,  and  Tira  used  wearily  to  wonder  whether  he 
felt  obliged  to  arrange  himself  for  combats  that,  so  far 
as  she  knew,  never  seemed  to  come  off.  There  was  a  mys 
terious  adversary  he  was  always  describing  with  an  appre 
hension  that  made  her  wonder  if  Israel  could  really  be 
afraid,  and  if  that  was  why  he  announced  so  belligerently 
that  he  was  ready  for  him.  Neither  of  them  thought  of 
the  combat  as  being  simply  the  grim  fight  the  will  of 
men  is  doomed  to  on  the  dark  plain  of  man's  mysterious 
sojourn.  It  seemed  to  them  outside  somewhere,  dra 
matic,  imminent,  and  yet,  if  you  prayed  loudly  enough 
and  read  your  chapter,  not  certain  to  happen  at  all.  At 
least  this  seemed  to  be  what  Tenney  thought,  and  Tira, 
when  she  dwelt  upon  it,  sleepily  followed  him.  To-night 
he  was  reading  in  Revelation,  and  when  he  had  finished 
that,  he  would  begin,  in  due  course,  at  Genesis,  and 
go  on  with  an  iron  persistency  of  accomplishment  as 
methodical  as  ploughing  a  field.  Tira,  sitting  at  her  side 
of  the  hearth,  heard,  through  drowsy  ears,  the  incompre 
hensible  vision  of  the  tree  of  life  with  its  twelve  manner 
of  fruits,  and  when  Israel  shut  the  Bible  with  an  air  of 
virtuous  finality,  she  came  awake  and  sat  guiltily  upright. 

"You've  been  asleep,"  he  accused  her  frowningly. 
"Anybody'd  think  you  could  keep  yourself  awake  over  the 
Word  o'  God." 

Tira  leaned  back  in  her  chair  and  yawned  with  the  sim 
plicity  of  the  natural  animal.  Tenney  caught  his  breath, 
the  redness  of  her  mouth  and  the  gleam  of  her  teeth  were 
so  bewitching  to  him.  He  got  up  and  carried  away  the 
Bible.  When  he  came  back  from  the  best  room  she  was 
moving  about,  setting  away  chairs  and  then  brushing  up 
the  few  chips  on  the  hearth. 


OLD  CROW 

"I'm  beat  out,"  she  acknowledged,  with  a  wistful  look 
at  him,  half  deprecating  humility.  "I  guess  I'll  poke  off 
to  bed." 

"Yes,"  said  Tenney,  "le's  go." 

At  that  minute  there  was  a  little  waking  call  from  the 
bedroom  off  the  sitting-room.  Tenney  gave  her  a  startled 
glance. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "you  got  him  in  there?" 

They  had  been  used  to  keeping  the  baby  covered  on 
the  kitchen  or  the  sitting-room  couch  until  their  own  bed 
time  and  Tenney,  preoccupied  with  his  last  chore  of  read 
ing  the  Scriptures,  had  not  noticed  that  his  wife  had  car 
ried  him  into  the  bedroom  instead. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  with  a  significant  quiet.  "I  thought 
'twas  full  warmer  in  the  bed.  I'm  goin'  to  stay  with  him." 

"In  there?"  Tenney  repeated.     "All  night?" 

She  nodded  at  him.  The  afternoon  brightness  was 
again  on  her  face,  and  for  an  instant  he  felt  afraid  of  her, 
she  looked  so  strange.  Then  he  laughed  a  little.  He 
thought  he  understood,  and,  advancing,  put  a  hand  on  her 
shoulder  and  spoke  in  an  awkward  tenderness. 

"Here,"  said  he,  "you  ain't  afraid  o'  me,  be  you? 
Why,  I  wouldn't  no  more  lay  hands  on  him 

He  had  meant  to  add  that  she  had  reassured  him  by 
her  disclaimer  of  the  morning.  But  he  could  not  quite 
manage  that.  Words  were  not  his  servants.  They  were 
his  enemies,  especially  at  such  times  as  he  was  mad  with 
rage.  Then  they  came  too  fast  and  got  the  better  of  him, 
and  he  could  hardly  ever  remember  afterward  what  they 
were.  Tira  slipped  from  under  his  hand  and  con 
tinued  her  ordered  tasks  about  the  room.  But  she  smiled 
at  him  in  the  friendliest  way. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  said,  "I  ain't  the  leastest  mite  afraid." 
She  laughed  a  little,  in  a  manner  mystifying  to  him,  for  it 


OLD  CROW  123 

suddenly  seemed  to  her  she  should  never  be  afraid  of  any 
thing  again. 

Tenney  stood  there,  his  eyes  following  her  as  she  moved 
about  the  room,  and  again  the  thought  of  her  cruelty  pos 
sessed  him.  Last  of  all  her  orderly  deeds,  she  lighted  a 
little  lamp  and  set  it  on  the  table  near  him. 

"Don't  you  forgit  to  blow  it  out,"  she  warned  him. 
"I'm  terrible  afraid  o'  fire,  these  winter  nights.  I  won't 
put  out  the  big  lamp  yet.  I  can  see  to  undress  by  it,  an' 
then  baby  won't  wake  up." 

He  took  his  lamp  and  set  it  down  again  and  went  to  the 
bedroom  door,  her  eyes  following  him. 

"I  dunno,"  he  said,  in  a  strangled  voice,  "as  there's  any 
need  o'  that  in  there,  for  folks  to  tumble  over." 

He  stepped  inside,  took  up  the  cradle  with  the  telltale 
gash  in  the  hood,  carried  it  through  the  kitchen  and  set 
it  outside  the  door,  in  the  shed. 

"I'll  carry  it  up  into  the  shed  chamber  tomorrer,"  he 
said,  in  the  same  tortured  voice. 

Then  he  took  his  lamp  and  turned  to  go.  He  was  as 
much  surprised  at  himself  as  she  could  have  guessed.  For 
some  reason — and  he  did  not  know  the  reason — he  could 
not  bear  to  leave  her  there  in  the  dark  with  the  silent 
witness  standing  by  to  cry  out  against  him.  Yet  this  he 
did  not  think.  He  only  knew  he  must  get  the  cradle  out 
of  the  room  and  do  it  quickly.  When  he  had  reached 
the  door  to  the  enclosed  staircase,  her  voice  halted  him 
so  abruptly  that  the  light  quivered  in  his  hand. 

"Isr'el,"  it  called,  "you're  real  good.  Don't  you  be 
cold.  There's  a  blanket  on  the  foot." 

But  though  he  hesitated  another  minute,  the  voice  had 
nothing  more  for  him,  and  he  went  slowly  up  to  bed.  As 
he  undressed,  his  thoughts  down  there  with  her,  he  won 
dered  how  her  voice  could  have  sounded  so  gay. 


OLD  CROW 

In  the  middle  of  the  night,  Tira  woke  suddenly,  with  the 
sense  of  something  near.  There  was  the  moon  flooding  the 
little  room,  and  in  the  doorway  stood  a  figure. 

"That  you,  Isr'el?"  she  called  clearly. 

"Yes,"   he  said,  and  then  hesitated,  "you   all  right?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  in  the  same  clear  voice,  with  some 
thing  commanding  in  it  now.  "We're  all  right.  You 
go  back  to  bed,  so's  to  git  your  sleep.  I'll  call  you  if  I'm 
up  first." 

Tenney  turned  away,  and  she  heard  his  hesitating  step 
through  the  kitchen  and  on  the  stairs.  Then,  as  if  this  had 
been  as  commonplace  an  interlude  in  her  night  as  the 
baby's  waking  and  drowsing  off  again,  she  felt  herself 
surging  happily  away  to  sleep. 


XII 


Raven,  tired  to  lethargy  by  the  morning's  turmoil, 
stayed  in  the  house  until  after  dinner.  He  sat  by  the 
library  fire,  a  book  on  his  knee,  chiefly  to  convince  Char 
lotte,  who  would  inevitably  detect  his  drop  in  responsive 
liveliness,  that  he  was  merely  absorbed  and  not  moping. 
Once  or  twice  she  did  appear  at  the  door,  plainly  to  look 
at  him,  but,  finding  he  kept  his  eyes  on  the  page,  she  did 
not  speak.  The  life  had  gone  out  of  him.  He  wondered 
at  himself  for  being  so  fagged.  Yet  it  had  been  a  good 
deal  of  a  strain,  that  anguish  of  a  creature  he  was  not 
allowed  to  help;  it  was  exacting  a  heavy  penalty.  He 
found  his  mind  dwelling  on  it,  look  by  look,  word  by 
word,  and  finding  no  relief  except  in  the  thought  of  Ten- 
ney  in  the  river  pasture,  chopping.  If  that  came  to  pass, 
the  woman  would  be  safe  for  hours  she  could  count  upon. 

That  afternoon,  Jerry  reported  that  Tenney  had  been 
over  and  promised  to  appear  next  morning  with  his  axe. 
Then  Raven  went  off  for  a  walk  along  the  road  skirt 
ing  the  base  of  the  mountain.  Possibly  he  chose  it 
because  it  led  to  the  woman's  old  home,  and  the  thought 
of  her  was  uppermost  in  his  mind.  The  road  itself  was 
still  and  dark,  subdued  to  a  moving  silence,  it  might 
almost  seem,  by  the  evergreens,  watchers  on  the  high  cliff 
at  the  left,  and  the  quiet  of  the  river,  now  under  ice,  on 
the  other  side  below.  He  kept  on  to  the  stepping  stones, 
at  the  verge  of  the  scattered  settlement  of  Mountain 

125 


126  OLD  CROW 

Brook.  They  were  rough  granite  at  regular  distances 
apart,  only  the  tops  of  them  visible  above  the  ice,  and 
they  made  the  concluding  stage  of  the  walk  across  lots 
from  Wake  Hill  to  Mountain  Brook.  In  spring  the  water 
swirled  about  them  madly,  and  it  was  one  of  the  adven 
tures  of  boyhood  for  a  squad  to  go  over  to  the  stepping 
stones  and  leap  from  one  to  another  without  splashing 
into  the  foam  below.  This  was  "playing  Moosewood,"  the 
Indian  who  had  been  found  there  drowned,  whether  by  his 
own  act  because  the  local  palefaces  had  got  his  hill-top, 
over  beyond,  or  from  prolonged  fire-water,  no  one  knew. 
But  always  he  was  a  noble  red  man  and  one  boy  acted  his 
despairing  part,  and  the  others  hunted  him  across  the 
stones.  In  the  game,  he  always  escaped  and  "shinnied" 
up  the  cliff  opposite,  by  fissures  the  boys  of  every  genera 
tion  knew,  and  struck  a  pose  among  the  evergreens  above, 
whooping  down  defiance. 

•Raven  stopped  there  and  gave  a  thought  to  the  boy 
he  had  been,  and  then  to  Anne,  who  had  once  taken  the 
walk  across  lots  with  him,  and  who,  when  he  told  her  how 
they  used  to  play  Moosewood,  insisted  on  crossing,  though 
he  had  tried  to  dissuade  her,  noting  her  foolish  shoes,  and 
aware  that  she  had  no  adroitness  of  eye  and  muscle.  But 
.she  had  a  will  of  steel  in  these  matters,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  spirit,  and  would  not  be  prevailed  on.  Three  of  the 
daring  leaps  she  made  from  one  stone  to  another  and  at 
the  fourth  she  slipped  and  he  caught  and  held  her,  the 
delicate  slenderness  of  her,  in  his  arms.  He  had  felt  awk 
ward  merely  and  sorry  for  her,  she  so  overprized  doing 
things  superlatively  well,  and  when  they  reached  the  bank 
she  was  flushed  and  shaken,  and  again  he  was  sorry,  it 
seemed  so  slight  a  thing  to  care  about.  But  as  he  looked 
down  there  now  he  was  thinking  really  about  her  he  called 
"the  woman"  in  his  mind.  She  would  not  slip.  She  was 


OLD  CROW  127 

as  perfectly  adapted  in  every  tempered  muscle  to  the 
rough  conditions  of  natural  life  as  the  pioneer  women  who 
helped  their  men  clear  the  wilderness  and  set  hearthstones. 
It  darkened  between  the  firs  and  they  began  to  stir  a  little, 
as  if  a  wind  were  coming  up,  and  he  turned  back  home, 
again  growing  uneasy  about  her,  shut  up  there  with  her 
tormentor  and  walled  about  by  the  dark. 

He  had  his  supper  early,  and  he  did  not  again  invite 
Charlotte  and  Jerry  to  eat  with  him.  Now,  he  felt,  he 
should  need  all  the  solitude  he  could  get  to  think  out  this 
thing  he  seemed  to  have  taken  upon  himself,  and  keep  a 
grip  on  his  anxiety.  After  supper  he  asked  Charlotte  for 
blankets  and  a  pillow.  She  did  not  look  at  him,  but  he 
was  clearly  aware  that  she  was  worried  and  would  not 
let  him  read  it  in  her  eyes. 

"It's  all  right,  Charlotte,"  he  assured  her.  "I  just  want 
some  things  up  there  at  the  hut,  for  the  couch,  that's 
all." 

"You  ain't  goin'  to  sleep  up  there,  be  you?"  she  asked 
quietly.  Charlotte,  he  knew,  had  felt  his  mood.  She  saw 
he  was  on  edge. 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  shall  be  right  back.  Only  I  want  to 
get  them  up  there.  To-morrow  I  shall  be  carrying  books 
and  things." 

She  got  the  blankets  without  a  word,  venturing  only, 
as  she  gave  them  to  him : 

" Jerry'll  be  as  mad  as  fire  with  me  for  not  sendin'  him 
up  to  lug  'em." 

Raven  smiled  at  her  and  went  off  with  his  load.  He  car 
ried  also  his  electric  torch,  and  traversing  the  dark  be 
tween  the  moving  trees,  creaking  now  and  complaining,  at 
the  door  of  the  hut  he  flashed  on  the  light  and  lifted  the 
stone.  The  key  was  there.  That  gave  him  a  momentary 
relief.  She  had  understood  and  done  her  part  toward  his 


128  OLD  CROW 

task  of  defending  her.  He  went  in,  tossed  the  things  over 
a  chair,  and  lighted  one  of  the  candles  on  the  mantel.  The 
hearth  was  cold  and  he  piled  logs  and  kindling.  Then 
he  put  the  pillow  in  its  place  on  the  couch  and  spread  the 
blankets.  That  was  to  show  her  she  was  to  make  herself 
comfortable.  The  match-box  he  placed  on  the  mantel, 
where  it  seemed  likely  her  hand  would  touch  it,  if  she 
thought  to  feel  there,  and  beside  it  his  torch.  It  might 
be  a  momentary  defence  against  the  impalpable  terrors  of 
the  night.  But  he  was  not  sure  she  would  feel  any  terrors, 
save  of  the  defined  and  tangible.  That  he  considered 
absorbedly  as  he  went  down  the  path  after  placing  the 
key  under  the  stone.  It  was  not  that  she  was  insensitive. 
He  felt  in  her  the  alert  readiness  of  a  perfectly  acting 
nervous  system.  It  showed  itself  in  her  self-control,  her 
readiness  of  courage,  her  persistent  calm.  She  would  not 
thrill  with  apprehension  over  the  tapping  of  those  boughs 
against  the  walls :  only  at  a  voice  or  a  human  tread. 

When  he  went  in  at  his  own  door  Charlotte  appeared, 
with  a  quick  step,  from  the  kitchen.  She  was  relieved,  he 
saw.  Dear  Charlotte !  she  did  not  know  how  his  anxieties 
were  mounting,  but  she  did  feel  the  uneasiness  he  had 
brought  with  him.  He  tried  to  throw  her  off  the  track  of 
her  silent  interrogations. 

"I'm  dog  tired,"  he  told  her.     "I  believe  I'll  go  to  bed." 

"That's  right,"  said  she.  "Your  fire's  been  blazed  up 
quite  a  while." 

"Don't  you  know,"  he  called  back  to  her  from  the  stairs, 
"how  we  always  sleep  when  we  first  come?  I  suppose  it's 
the  altitude." 

"Yes,"  said  Charlotte.  "So  'tis,  anyhow  accordin'  to 
Jerry." 

Raven   carried   the  look   of  her  anxious,  warm-colored 


OLD  CROW  129 

face  with  him.  It  was  all  motherly.  Yet  she  had  no 
children.  Jerry  lived  under  the  daily  chrism  of  that  soft 
well-wishing.  And  there  was  the  woman  up  the  road, 
looking  like  a  spiritual  mother  of  men  and  strangely, 
mysteriously,  also  like  the  ancient  lure  that  makes  men 
mad,  and  she  had  to  fight  like  a  tigress  for  the  mere  life 
of  her  child.  The  contrast  leaped  into  the  kaleidoscopic 
disorder  he  saw  now  as  life  like  a  brilliant,  bizarre  frag 
ment  to  make  the  whole  scheme  (if  the  scheme  could  be 
even  estimated  by  mortal  minds)  more  disorderly  still. 
But  he  was  tired  and  he  slept.  It  would  be  good,  he  had 
thought  for  many  weeks  now,  when  he  felt  himself  drifting 
off,  to  sleep  forever.  To-night  he  did  not  want  that  ever 
lasting  sleep.  He  wanted  life,  life  to  its  full  of  power 
and  probity,  to  stand  between  the  woman  and  her  terror. 
Suddenly  he  woke,  and  lay,  his  heart  beating  hard  at  the 
sound  of  the  pines  in  the  grove.  Charlotte  had  done  her 
best  to  put  the  breadth  of  the  house  between  him  and 
their  lamenting,  but  their  voices  crept  round  the  corner 
and  into  his  open  windows,  and  invaded  his  mind.  He 
lay  there,  the  wind  on  his  face  and  that  sighing  melan 
choly  of  theirs  calling  him  to  an  answering  sadness  of  his 
own.  And  now  it  was  not  his  inexplicable  panic  of  dis 
affection  toward  the  earth  as  God  had  made  it,  but  a 
pageant  of  darkness  where  formless  terrors  moved,  all 
hostile  to  the  woman.  At  this  moment,  she  seemed  to 
him  the  point  of  blinding  pain  about  which  the  general 
misery  of  the  world  revolved.  She  was  beauty  in  the  flesh. 
She  led  the  mind  to  the  desire  of  holy  things.  At  least, 
that  was  where  she  had  led  his  mind. 

But  the  cruelty  of  creation  was  not  content  with  set 
ting  her  loose  in  the  world  of  created  things  with  the  gift 
of  beauty  and  holiness  in  her  hand.  It  had  veiled  her 


130  OLD  CROW 

also  with  the  mysterious  magic  that  was  simple  enough 
and  directly  compelling  enough  to  rouse  the  beast  of 
jealousy,  the  beast  of  mastery,  in  the  hearts  of  men.  She 
did  not  seem  to  him  an  Aphrodite,  bearing  in  her  hand 
the  cup  of  love.  There  was  something  childlike  about  her, 
something  as  virginal  as  in  Nan.  He  could  believe  she 
would  be  endlessly  pleased  with  simple  things,  that  she 
could  be  made  to  laugh  delightedly  over  the  trivialities  of 
daily  life.  But  the  hand  of  creation  having  made  her, 
the  brain  of  creation  (that  inexorable  force  bent  only  on 
perpetuation)  saw  she  was  too  good  a  thing  to  be  lost, 
too  innocently  persuasive  to  the  passion  of  men.  So  it 
had  thrown  over  her  the  veil  of  mystery  and  pronounced 
against  her  the  ancient  curse  that  she  should  be  desired 
of  many  and  yet  too  soft  of  her  heart,  too  weak  in  her 
defenses,  even  to  foresee  the  pitfalls  that  awaited  her  wan 
dering  feet  and  would  sometime  break  her  bones. 

This  was  the  worst  of  all  the  sleepless  hours  he  had  had, 
and  in  the  morning  he  was  up  and  out  before  Charlotte 
was  ready  for  him.  Jerry  had  breakfasted,  when  Raven 
came  on  him  in  the  barn.  He  expected  Tenney  to  go 
chopping,  and  he  wanted  the  chores  done,  to  get  off  early. 
Raven  went  in  then  and  told  Charlotte  he  would  not  have 
his  own  breakfast  until  Jerry  had  gone.  He  wanted  to 
say  a  word  to  him  as  to  the  gray  birches.  But  actually 
he  could  not  down  his  impatience  to  know  whether  Tenney 
was  coming  at  all.  So  he  hung  about  and  hindered  Jerry 
with  unnecessary  talk  for  a  half  hour  or  so,  and  while  they 
were  standing  in  the  yard  together,  looking  down  toward 
the  river  pasture,  and  Raven  was  specifying,  with  more 
emphasis  than  he  felt,  that  a  fringe  of  trees  should  be 
kept  along  the  mowing,  Tenney  came.  Jerry  at  once  said 
he'd  go  in  and  get  his  dinner  pail  and  Raven  waited  for 


OLD  CROW  131 

Tenney.  This  was  not  the  man  of  yesterday.  He  carried 
his  axe  and  dinner  pail.  He  walked  alertly,  as  if  his  mind 
were  on  his  day's  work,  and  the  pale  face  had  quite  lost 
its  livid  excitement.  It  was  grave  and  even  sad.  Raven, 
seeing  that,  wondered  if  the  fellow  could  feel  remorse, 
and  was  conscious  of  a  lift  in  the  cloud  of  his  own  anxiety. 
Tenney,  not  waiting  to  be  addressed,  walked  straight  up 
to  him.  He  spoke,  as  soon  as  he  was  within  hearing  dis 
tance  of  a  tone  of  ordinary  volume,  and  what  he  said 
surprised  Raven  even  more  than  the  catamount  calls  of 
yesterday : 

"Be  you  saved?" 

Raven  knew  the  salient  country  phrases,  but,  so  alien 
was  the  question  to  his  conception  of  the  man,  that  he 
answered  perplexedly: 

"What  do  you  mean  by  saved?" 

Tenney  set  down  his  dinner  pail,  as  if  it  hampered  him, 
and  began  rhythmically,  in  the  voice  of  the  exhorter : 

"Saved  by  the  blood  of  the  Lamb." 

Raven  stepped  back  a  pace. 

"No,"  he  said  coldly,  "not  that  I'm  aware  of." 

Tenney  came  forward  a  step  and  Raven  again  backed. 
There  was  something  peculiarly  distasteful  in  being  ex 
horted  by  a  fellow  of  unbridled  temper  and  a  bestial  mind. 

"You  are  a  sinner,"  said  Tenney.  "If  you  reject  the 
great  atonement,  you  are  lost.  Don't  you  know  you 
be?" 

"No,"  said  Raven.  He  was  on  the  point  of  turning 
away,  when  he  remembered  it  was  an  ill-judged  impetuos 
ity  he  could  not  afford.  It  was  more  important,  in  this 
world  of  persecution  and  unstable  defense,  to  keep  your 
antagonist  busy,  cutting  gray  birches. 

"Do  you   reject  Him?"     Tenney,   too,  had  his   day's 


OLD  CROW 

work  on  his  mind  and  he  spoke  rapidly,  with  a  patent 
show  of  getting  his  exhortation  done  in  time  to  fall  into 
step  with  Jerr}%  appearing,  at  the  moment,  axe  in  hand. 
He  picked  up  his  dinner  pail.  "Do  you  reject  Him?"  he 
repeated,  in  his  former  singsong.  "Do  you  reject  Christ 
crucified?" 

And  in  spite  of  the  prudence  his  inner  self  had  coun 
seled,  Raven  found  he  was,  perhaps  only  from  force  of 
habit  augmented  by  his  distaste  for  the  man,  answering 
truthfully : 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "as  you  mean  it,  I  do." 

Jerry,  in  the  road,  had  halted  and  was  looking  back 
inquiringly.  Tenney  started  after  him.  Instead  of  being 
rebuffed  by  Raven's  attitude,  he  seemed  to  be  exhilarated. 
Raven  concluded,  as  he  saw  the  light  of  a  perhaps  fanati 
cal  zeal  playing  over  his  face,  that  the  fellow  took  it  for  a 
challenge,  an  incentive  to  bring  one  more  into  the  fold. 
It  was  something  in  the  nature  of  a  dare. 

When  he  went  in,  Charlotte  was  about  her  tasks  at  the 
kitchen  stove. 

"You're  not  going  to  fodder  the  cattle,  you  know,"  he 
said  to  her,  passing  through.  "I'll  see  to  that.  Jerry 
showed  me  the  mow  he  is  using  from." 

"I  always  do,"  said  Charlotte,  "when  he's  away  all  day. 
I  admire  to  git  out  there  an'  smell  the  creatur's  and  hear 
'em  rattlin'  round  the  stanchils  till  they  see  the  hay  afore 
'em." 

"Never  mind,"  said  Raven.  "I'll  do  it  to-day."  Then  a 
thought  struck  him.  "I  wonder,"  he  said,  "who  Tenney 
leaves  to  do  his  chores." 

"Why,"  said  Charlotte,  "I  s'pose  she  does  'em,  same's 
I  do  when  I'm  alone.  'Tain't  no  great  of  a  job,  'specially 
if  the  hay's  pitched  round  beforehand." 


OLD  CROW  133 

Raven,  sitting  down  to  his  breakfast,  thought  it  a  good 
deal  of  a  task  for  a  woman  made  for  soft,  kind  ways  with 
children  and  the  small  domestic  animals  by  the  hearth. 
And  then  he  did  have  the  humor  to  laugh  at  himself  a 
little.  It  showed  how  she  had  unconsciously  beguiled  him, 
how  she  had  impressed  him  with  her  curious  implication 
of  belonging  to  things  afar  from  this  world  of  homespun 
usages.  She  was  strong  and  undeniably  homespun  herself, 
in  every  word  and  look.  Let  her  fodder  the  cattle.  Per 
haps  they  would  add  to  the  lonesome  tranquillity  of  her 
day,  with  their  needs  and  their  sweet-breathed  satis 
factions. 


XIII 

For  a  week  it  was  hard,  clear  weather,  with  a  crystal 
sky  and  no  wind.  Tenney  appeared  in  the  early  mornings 
and  he  and  Jerry  went  off  to  their  chopping.  Raven's 
relief  grew.  By  the  last  of  the  week  he  found  his  appre 
hension  really  lessening.  Every  hour  of  her  safety  gave 
him  new  reassurance,  and  he  could  even  face  the  nights, 
the  long  hours  when  Tenney  was  at  home.  Tenney  he 
took  pains  not  to  meet.  He  distinctly  objected  to  being 
pressed  into  a  corner  by  the  revivalist  cant  of  a  man  he 
could  not  wisely  offend.  Nor  did  he  see  her  whom  he  called 
"the  woman."  Sometimes  in  the  early  dusk  after  Tenney 
had  got  home,  he  was  strongly  moved  to  walk  past  the 
house  and  see  if  their  light  looked  cheerful,  or  if  he  could 
hear  the  sound  of  voices  within.  Smile  at  himself  as  he 
might,  at  the  childishness  of  the  fancy,  he  alternately 
thought  of  her  as  being  pursued  out  of  the  house  by  a 
madman  with  an  axe  and  exhorted  to  save  herself  by  the 
blood  of  the  Lamb.  And,  Tenney  being  what  he  was,  the 
last  was  almost  as  disquieting  as  the  actual  torment. 
Every  morning  he  went  up  to  the  hut  to  find  no  slightest 
sign  of  her  having  been  there.  If  he  stayed  long  enough  to 
build  a  fire,  he  went  back,  after  it  had  time  to  die,  and  laid 
another,  so  that  she  might  light  it  without  delay. 

On  the  Saturday  night  of  that  week  the  wind  veered 
into  the  east  and  the  clouds  banked  up.  The  air  had  a 
grayness  that  meant  snow.  He  had  been  up  at  the  hut 

134 


OLD  CROW  135 

all  the  afternoon.  He  had  pulled  out  an  old  chest, 
the  sea-chest  of  a  long  dead  Raven  who  had  been  marked 
with  sea  longing,  as  it  sometimes  happens  to  those  bred 
in  the  hills,  and  had  run  away  and  become  mate  and  cap 
tain.  Raven  had  always  been  vaguely  proud  of  him,  and 
so,  perhaps,  had  other  Ravens,  for  Old  Crow,  when  he 
moved  up  here,  had  brought  the  sea-chest  with  him,  and 
his  own  books  also  were  stowed  away  in  it.  Old  Captain 
Raven's  were  entirely  consistent  with  his  profession — 
charts,  a  wonderful  flat  volume  full  of  the  starry  heavens 
and  more  enchanting  to  Raven  than  any  modern  astron 
omy  ;  but  Old  Crow's,  in  their  diverse  character,  seemed 
to  have  been  gathered  together  as  it  happened,  possibly 
as  he  came  on  them,  in  no  sense  an  index  of  individual 
taste.  There  were  poets  (strange  company  they  made  for 
one  another!)  Milton,  Ossian,  Byron,  Thompson,  Herrick, 
and  the  Essays  of  Montaigne,  the  Confessions  of  Rous 
seau.  Also,  the  Age  of  Reason,  which,  on  the  testimony 
of  uncut  leaves,  had  not  been  read.  And  there  was  a 
worn,  dog-eared  Bible.  Raven  had  never  wanted  to  ap 
propriate  the  books  so  far  as  to  set  them  with  his  own  on 
the  shelves.  They  seemed  to  him,  through  their  isolation, 
to  keep  something  of  the  identity  of  Old  Crow.  He  be 
lieved  Old  Crow  would  like  this.  It  was  precious  little 
earthly  immortality  the  old  chap  had  ever  got  beyond  the 
local  derision,  and  if  Raven  could  please  him  by  so  small 
a  thing,  he  would.  He  had  them  all  out  on  chairs  and  sat 
on  the  floor  beside  the  chest,  looking  them  over  idly  until 
it  began  to  grow  dark  and,  realizing  how  early  it  was,  he 
glanced  up  at  the  windows  and  saw  the  veil  of  a  fine  fall 
ing  snow.  He  got  up,  left  his  books  in  disorder,  and 
lighted  the  lamp.  The  fire  had  been  dying  down  and  he 
kicked  the  sticks  apart.  It  must  die  wholly  so  that  a 


136  OLD  CROW 

fresh  one  would  run  no  chance  of  catching  the  coals.  Yet 
it  was  unlikely  she  would  come  to-night.  Tenney  would 
be  tired  with  his  week's  work. 

And  just  as  he  was  making  himself  reasons,  in  a  me 
chanical  way,  while  he  put  the  room  in  order,  there  was  a 
knock,  quick,  imperative,  the  door  was  thrown  open  and 
there  she  was.  She  was  about  to  shut  the  door,  but  he 
ran  before  her.  He  did  it  and  turned  the  key.  Then  he 
passed  her  and  hurried  to  the  fire  and  with  both  hands 
heaped  on  cones  and  kindling  until  it  flared.  While  he 
did  this  she  stood  as  still  as  a  stone  and  when,  having  his 
fire,  he  turned  to  her,  he  saw  she  had  nothing  on  her 
head  and  that  the  fine  snow  had  drifted  into  the  folds  of 
her  clothing  and  was  melting  on  her  hair.  She  looked 
more  wildly  disordered  than  when  he  had  seen  her  before, 
for  she  had  wrapped  a  blanket  about  her,  and  the  child 
was  under  it,  covered  so  closely  that  Raven  wondered  how 
he  could  breathe.  He  tried  to  take  the  blanket  from  her, 
but  she  held  it  desperately.  It  seemed  as  if,  in  unreason 
ing  apprehension,  she  dared  not  let  the  child  be  seen.  But 
he  laid  his  hand  on  hers,  saying,  "Please !"  authoritatively, 
and  she  let  him  unclasp  the  tense  fingers,  remove  the  blan 
ket,  and  then  take  the  child.  Raven  had  had  no  experi 
ence  with  babies,  but  this  one  he  took,  in  the  heat  of 
his  compassion,  with  no  doubt  that  he  should  know 
what  to  do  with  him.  He  felt  the  little  feet  and  hands 
and,  finding  them  warm,  drew  forward  an  arm-chair 
for  her,  and,  when  she  sank  into  it,  set  the  child  in  her 
lap. 

"Put  your  feet  to  the  fire,"  he  said.  "Your  shoes  are 
all  snow.  Better  take  them  off." 

She  shook  her  head.  She  stretched  her  feet  almost  into 
the  blaze  and  the  steam  rose  from  them.  Raven  went  to 


OLD  CROW  137 

the  cupboard  at  the  side  of  the  fireplace  and  took  down  a 
bottle  of  chartreuse.  But  she  shook  her  head. 

"I  dassent,"  she  said.     "He'll  smell  it." 

Raven  came  near  breaking  into  an  oath.  Did  the  beast 
own  her,  that  he  should  be  able,  after  this  new  outrage, 
to  get  her  sweet  breath? 

"I  ain't  cold,"  she  assured  him,  "not  now.  No,  I  won't 
drink  any" — for  he  was  about  to  pour  it  for  her — "I  never 
took  much  stock  in  them  things.  I've  seen  too  much 
of  'em." 

Then  Raven  remembered  that  Charlotte  had  told  him 
all  the  boys  drank — her  brothers — and  he  seemed  to  have 
turned  another  page  in  her  piteous  life.  He  set  back  the 
bottle  and,  to  give  her  time  to  recover  herself,  resumed 
his  task  of  straightening  the  room.  At  her  voice,  he  was 
at  once  beside  her. 

"Should  you  just  as  soon,"  she  asked  quietly,  as  if  the 
question  were  of  no  moment,  "I'd  stay  up  here  all  night?" 

"Of  course  you're  to  stay  all  night."  It  seemed  to  him 
too  beautiful  a  thing  to  have  happened,  to  know  she  was 
here  in  safety  with  the  trees  and  the  snow.  "I'll  go  down 
and  get  some  milk  and  things  for  him" — he  was  indicating 
the  baby  who,  under  the  ecstasy  of  warmth,  was  beginning 
to  talk  strange  matters,  standing  on  his  mother's  knee — 
"I'll  tell  Charlotte  I'm  staying  up  here  all  night." 

But  now  he  saw,  in  surprise  (for  he  had  failed  to  guess 
how  his  words  would  strike  her)  that  she  was  terrified, 
perhaps  more  by  him  than  she  had  been  by  Tenney. 

"No,"  she  cried  violently.  "You  can't  do  that.  You 
mustn't.  If  you  stay,  I've  got  to  go." 

"I  can't  have  you  up  here  in  the  woods  alone,"  he 
reasoned. 

She  gave  a  little  laugh.     The  quality  of  it  was  ironic. 


138  OLD  CROW 

It  made  him  wonder  what  her  laughter  would  be  if  she 
were  allowed  to  savor  the  quaintness  of  sheer  fun.  She 
spoke  obliquely,  yet  accounting  for  the  laugh. 

"What  do  you  s'pose'd  happen  to  me?" 

"Nothing,"  he  owned,  comparing,  as  she  meant  him  to, 
the  safety  of  her  state  up  here,  surrounded  by  the  trees 
and  the  wind,  and  her  prison  with  the  madman  down  be 
low.  "But  I  can't  have  it.  Do  you  suppose  I  can  go 
down  there  and  sleep  in  my  bed?"  He  paused  and  began 
to  coax.  Charlotte  could  have  told  her  how  beguiling  he 
was  when  he  coaxed.  "I'll  stay  in  the  other  room  and 
keep  an  eye  out.  I  sha'n't  sleep.  I  won't  even  disturb 
you  by  tending  the  fire.  You  can  do  that.  Come,  is  it  a 
bargain.  It's  the  only  safe  thing  to  do,  you  know.  Sup 
pose  he  should  come  up  here  in  the  night?" 

"That's  it,"  she  said  quietly.  "S'pose  he  should?  Do 
you  want  I  should  be  found  up  here  with  a  man,  any  man, 
even  you?" 

He  was  silent,  struck  by  her  bitter  logic.  His  heart,  in 
the  actual  physical  state  of  it,  ached  for  her.  She  would 
not  let  him  save  her,  he  thought  despairingly ;  indeed,  per 
haps  she  could  not.  For  she  alone  knew  the  noisome 
perils  of  her  way.  He  relinquished  his  proposition,  with 
out  comment,  and  he  could  see  at  once  what  relief  that 
gave  her. 

"Very  well,"  he  said,  "I'll  go  down.  But  I  shall 
certainly  come  back  and  bring  you  some  milk.  Some 
thing  to  heat  it  in,  too.  Old  Crow  used  to  have 
dishes,  but  they're  gone.  Lock  the  door  after  me.  I'll 
call  when  I  come." 

But  she  rose  from  her  seat,  put  the  baby  on  the  couch 
and  took  the  blanket  from  the  chair  where  he  had  spread 
it.  There  were  still  drops  on  it,  and  she  went  to  the  other 
side  of  the  room,  at  a  safe  distance  from  the  baby,  and 


OLD  CROW  139 

shook  it.  She  had  settled  into  a  composure  as  determined 
as  his  own. 

"It's  no  use  talkin',"  she  said.     "I've  got  to  go  back." 

"Go  back?"     He  stared  at  her. 

"Yes.  What  we've  just  said  shows  me.  Nothin's  more 
likely  than  his  comin'  up  here.  He  might  reason  it  out. 
He  knows  I  wouldn't  go  to  any  o'  the  neighbors,  an'  he'd 
know  I  wouldn't  let  baby  ketch  his  death,  a  night  like  this, 
the  storm  an'  all.  An'  if  he  found  me  here  locked  in,  even 
if  there  wa'n't  nobody  here  with  me,  I  dunno  what  he'd 
do.  Burn  the  house  down,  I  guess,  over  my  head." 

The  last  she  said  absently.  She  was  arranging  the 
blanket  about  her  with  an  anxious  care,  evidently  making 
it  so  secure  that  she  need  not  use  her  hands  in  holding;. 
They  would  be  given  to  the  baby. 

"Burn  my  house  down,  will  he?  Let  him  try  it,"  said 
Raven,  under  his  breath. 

She  looked  at  him  in  a  calm-eyed  reproach  that  was  all 
motherly. 

"We  mustn't  have  no  trouble,"  said  she.  "I  dunno 
what  I  should  do  if  I  brought  that  on  you." 

"What  does  the  man  mean,"  Raven  broke  out,  chiefly 
to  attract  her  attention  and  keep  her  there  under  shel 
ter,  "by  going  dotty  half  the  time  and  the  other  half  but 
ting  in  and  asking  people  if  they're  saved?" 

"Did  he  ask  you?"  she  inquired.  She  nodded,  as  if  it 
were  precisely  what  might  have  been  expected.  "I  s'pose 
he  thinks  he  has  to.  He's  a  very  religious  man." 

"Religious !"  Raven  muttered.  "Does  he  have  to  do  the 
other  thing,  too:  go  off  his  nut?" 

She  was  looking  at  him  gravely.  Suddenly  it  came 
to  him  he  must  be  more  sympathetic  in  his  attitude.  He 
must  not  let  her  feel  rebuffed,  thinking  he  did  not  under 
stand. 


140  OLD  CROW 

"I  dunno's  I  blame  him,"  she  said  slowly,  as  if  she 
found  it  a  wearingly  difficult  matter  and  meant  to  be  en 
tirely  just.  "You  see  he  had  provocation."  The  red 
came  flooding  into  her  cheeks.  "He  come  home  from 
work  an'  what  should  he  see  but  the  man,  the  one  I  told 
you " 

She  stopped,  and  Raven  supplied,  in  what  he  hoped 
was  an  unmoved  manner: 

"The  one  that  looks  up  kinder  droll?" 

For  his  life  he  could  not  have  helped  repeating  the 
words  as  she  had  given  them  to  him.  He  had  found  them 
too  poignant  in  their  picturesque  drama  to  be  paraphrased 
or  forgotten. 

"Yes,"  she  said  eagerly.  She  was  relieved  to  be  helped. 
"He  drove  up  in  his  sleigh,  about  fifteen  minutes  'fore 
Isr'el  come  home.  He  come  up  to  the  house.  I  went  to 
the  door.  'What  do  you  want?'  I  says.  Then  he  begun 
to  say  things,  foolish  things  same's  he  always  did 

She  stumbled  there,  as  if  in  shame,  and  Raven  knew 
what  kind  of  things  they  were:  things  about  her  eyes, 
her  lips,  insulting  things  to  an  honest  wife,  taunting 
things,  perhaps,  touching  the  past.  More  and  more 
she  seemed  to  him  like  a  mother  of  sorrows,  a  child 
unjustly  scourged  into  the  dark  mysteries  of  passion  and 
pain. 

"Never  mind,"  he  said  reassuringly.  "Don't  try  to  tell 
me.  Don't  think  of  them." 

But  she  would  tell  him.  It  seemed  as  if  she  had  to  jus 
tify  herself. 

"Pie  told  me  he  wanted  to  come  in.  'You  can't,'  says  I, 
'not  whilst  I  live.'  An'  he  laughed  an'  stood  there  an' 
dug  his  heel  into  the  snow  an'  waited,  kinder  watchin'  the 
road  till  Isr'el  hove  in  sight  with  his  dinner  pail.  An' 
then  I  see  it  all.  He'd  drove  along  that  way  an'  see  Isr'el 


OLD  CROW  141 

an'  Jerry  comin'  acrost  from  their  work  an'  he  meant  to 
stan'  there  drivin'  me  out  o'  my  senses  till  Isr'el  see  him. 
An'  soon  as  he  was  sure  Isr'el  did  see  him,  he  turned  an' 
run  for  the  sleigh  an'  got  in  an'  give  the  hoss  a  cut,  an' 
he  was  off  same's  he  meant  to  be." 

"And  you  were  left  alone  with  Tenney,"  said  Raven 
quietly.  "There !  don't  tell  me  any  more." 

She  smiled  upon  him,  giving  him  an  ineffable  sense  that 
she  had,  in  telling  him,  somehow  dropped  her  burden. 
Now  she  said,  with  as  calm  a  resolution  as  that  of  the 
martyr  marching  to  the  fire  he  is  sure  his  Lord  has  called 
him  to: 

"I'll  go  down  along." 

She  went  over  to  the  couch,  took  up  the  child,  and  be 
gan  to  tuck  about  him  the  folds  of  her  enveloping  blanket. 
Raven  moved  to  her  side.  He  had  an  overwhelming  sense 
of  their  being  at  one  in  the  power  of  their  resolution. 
If  she  would  yield  to  his  deliberate  judgment !  if  only  their 
resolutions  could  coincide! 

"No,"  he  said,  "you're  not  going  down  there.  I  won't 
have  it." 

She  looked  at  him  and  faintly  smiled. 

"I've  got  to,"  she  said.  "If  I  stay  away  all  night  an' 
he  don't  know  where,  there  wouldn't  be  any  way  o'  piecin' 
on." 

And  suddenly  he  knew,  if  she  was  to  persist  in  "piecing 
on,"  she  was  right. 

"Wait,"  he  said.  "Let  me  think." 

There  must  be  some  way,  he  reflected,  some  means,  by 
violence  or  diplomacy,  to  help  her  fulfill  the  outer  rites  of 
her  bargain  until  he  could  persuade  her  to  be  taken  beyond 
the  reach  of  persecution.  He  wanted  to  fight  for  her; 
but  if  that  was  not  the  way,  if  his  fists  would  only  bruise 
her  as  well  as  Tenney,  he  was  ready  to  lie.  He  had  his 


OLD  CROW 

idea.  It  might  be  good,  it  might  not,  but  it  was  an  emer 
gency  idea. 

"I'll  go  down,"  he  said.  "I'll  go  over  to  your  house  and 
offer  to  pay  him  for  his  week's  work.  You  follow.  Give 
me  time  enough  to  go  into  my  house  on  the  way  and  get 
some  money.  Then  you  come  while  I'm  talking  to  him  and 
I'll  stay  a  bit,  as  long  as  I  can.  When  you  come,  we 
can  see  how  he  is.  If  he's  violent  to  you — if  he  looks  it, 
even — you've  got  to  come  away." 

"Oh,  no,"  she  cried  sharply,  "I  can't  do  that.  You 
must  see  I  can't." 

"I'll  take  you  to  my  house,"  he  said.  "You  know  Char 
lotte.  She'll  be  nice  to  you.  Why,  if  Charlotte  found  out 
a  thing  like  this  was  going  on  in  the  neighborhood,  she'd 
go  for  him  tooth  and  nail." 

"No,"  said  she,  in  a  dull  decision.  "I  can't.  It  would 
all  come  on  you." 

He  understood.  The  madman  would  drag  him  into  that 
range  of  jealous  fury  and  because  he  was  a  man. 

"I  can  look  out  for  myself,"  he  said  roughly,  "and  you, 
too." 

Again  she  shook  her  head. 

"No,"  she  said,  "he  might  kill  you.  Anyways,  he'd 
burn  your  barn." 

"He  won't  kill  me,"  said  Raven,  "and  I  don't  care  a 
hang  about  my  barn.  Let  him  burn.  Good  thing.  I'll 
clap  him  into  jail  and  you'll  know  where  he  is.  Now!" 
He  looked  at  the  clock  on  the  mantel.  "I'm  going.  In 
just  twenty  minutes  you  start  and  come  along  as  fast  as 
you  want  to.  I'll  be  at  your  house." 

She  had  begun  to  speak,  but  he  paid  no  attention.  He 
turned  up  his  collar  and  stepped  out  into  the  storm. 

"Lock  the  door,"  he  called  back  to  her.  "Keep  it  locked 
till  you  go." 


OLD  CROW  143 

The  road  down  the  slope  was  scarcely  clogged  at  all. 
The  firs,  waving  now  and  interlocking  their  branches  in 
that  vague  joy  or  trouble  of  the  winter  wind,  were  keeping 
off  the  powdery  drift.  When  he  got  to  his  house  he  saw 
Jerry  on  the  way  to  the  barn,  but  he  did  not  hail  him. 
Possibly  Jerry  had  paid  Tenney  for  his  week,  and  al 
though  Raven's  own  diplomacy  would  stick  at  nothing, 
he  preferred  to  act  in  good  faith,  possibly  so  that  he 
might  act  the  better.  He  smiled  a  little  at  that  and  won 
dered,  in  passing,  if  he  were  never  to  be  allowed  any  arro 
gance  of  perfect  behavior,  if  he  had  always  got  to  be  so 
sorry  for  the  floating  wisps  of  humanity  that  seemed  to 
blow  his  way  as  to  go  darting  about,  out  of  his  own 
straight  course,  to  pluck  them  back  to  safety.  There 
were  serious  disadvantages,  he  concluded,  as  he  often  had 
before,  in  owning  a  feminine  vein  of  temperament.  He 
went  in  at  the  front  door  and  up  the  stairs,  took  a  roll  of 
money  from  his  desk  and  ran  down  again.  Charlotte  had 
not  seen  him.  She  was  singing  in  the  kitchen  in  a  frag 
mentary  way  she  had  when  life  went  well  with  her,  and  the 
sound  filled  Raven  with  an  unreasoning  anger.  Why 
should  any  woman,  even  so  dear  and  all  deserving  as  Char 
lotte,  live  and  thrive  in  the  warmth  and  light  while  that 
other  creature,  of  as  simply  human  cravings,  battled  her 
way  along  from  cliff  to  cliff,  with  the  sea  of  doom  below, 
beating  against  the  land  that  was  so  arid  to  her  and  wait 
ing  only  to  engulf  her?  That,  he  thought,  was  another 
count  in  his  indictment  against  the  way  things  were  made. 

The  Tenney  house,  when  he  approached  it,  was  cold 
in  the  darkness  of  the  storm.  The  windows  were  inhos 
pitably  blank,  and  his  heart  fell  with  disappointment.  He 
went  up  to  the  side  door  looking  out  on  the  pile  of  wood 
that  was  the  monument  to  Tenney's  rages,  and  knocked 
sharply.  No  one  came.  He  knocked  again,  and  suddenly 


144  OLD  CROW 

there  was  a  clatter  within,  as  if  some  one  had  overturned 
a  chair,  and  steps  came  stumbling  to  the  door.  A  voice 
came  with  them,  Tenney's  voice. 

"That  you?"  he  called. 

He  called  it  three  times.  Then  he  flung  open  the  door 
and  leaned  out  and,  from  his  backward  recoil,  Raven 
knew  he  had  hoped  unreasonably  to  find  his  wife,  knocking 
at  her  own  door.  Raven  kicked  his  feet  against  the  step, 
with  an  implication  of  being  snow-clogged  and  cold. 

"How  are  you?"  he  said.  "Let  me  come  in,  won't  you? 
It's  going  to  be  an  awful  night." 

Tenney  stepped  back,  let  him  enter,  and  closed  the  door 
behind  him.  They  stood  together  in  the  darkness  of  the 
entry.  Raven  concluded  he  was  not  to  be  told  which  way 
to  go. 

"Smells  warm  in  here,"  he  said,  taking  a  step  to  the 
doorway  at  the  left.  "This  the  kitchen?" 

Tenney  recovered  herself. 

"Walk  in,"  he  said.  "I'll  light  up." 

Raven,  standing  in  the  spacious  kitchen,  all  a  uniform 
darkness,  it  was  so  black  outside,  could  hear  the  man 
breathe  in  great  rasping  gulps,  as  if  he  were  recovering 
from  past  emotion  or  were  still  in  its  grasp.  He  had 
taken  a  lamp  down  from  the  high  mantel  and  set  it  on  the 
table.  Now  he  was  lighting  it,  and  his  hand  shook.  The 
lamp  burning  and  bringing  not  only  light  but  a  multitude 
of  shadows  into  the  kitchen,  he  turned  upon  Raven. 

"Well,"  he  said,  harshly.     "Say  it.     Git  it  over." 

Raven  heard  in  his  voice  new  signs  of  a  tremendous, 
almost  an  hysterical  excitement.  It  had  got,  he  knew,  to 
be  quieted  before  she  came. 

"If  you'll  allow  me,"  he  said,  "I'll  sit  down.  I'm  devil 
ish  cold." 

"Don't  swear,"  said  Tenney,  still  in  that  sharp,  exas- 


OLD  CROW  145 

perated  voice,  and  Raven  guessed  he  was  nervously  afraid, 
at  such  a  crisis,  of  antagonizing  the  Most  High. 

The  vision  of  his  own  grandmother  came  up  before 
him,  she  who  would  not  let  him  read  a  child's  book  in  a 
thunder  shower  lest  God  should  consider  the  act  too 
trivial  in  the  face  of  elemental  threatening  and  strike  him 
dead.  He  took  one  of  the  straight-backed  chairs  by  the 
stove  and  leaned  forward  with  an  absorbed  pretense  of 
wanning  his  chilled  hands.  But  he  was  not  reassuring 
Tenney.  He  was  still  more  exasperating  him. 

"Say  it,  can't  you?"  the  man  cried  to  him  piercingly. 
"Tell  it  an'  git  it  over."  Then,  as  Raven  merely  looked 
at  him  in  a  civil  inquiry,  "You've  got  suthin'  to  break, 
ain't  ye?  Break  it  an'  leave  me  be." 

Raven  understood.  The  man's  mind  was  on  his  wife, 
fled  out  into  the  storm.  His  inflamed  imagination  was 
picturing  disaster  for  her.  He  was  wild  with  apprehen 
sion.  And  it  was  well  he  should  be  wild.  It  was  a  pity 
she  was  likely  to  come  so  soon.  Raven  would  have  been 
glad  to  see  his  emotions  run  the  whole  scale  from  terror 
to  remorse  before  she  came,  if  come  she  would,  to  allay 
them. 

"No,"  he  said  quietly,  "I  haven't  anything  to  break. 
But  it's  going  to  be  an  awful  night.  I  guess  there  will 
be  things  to  break  about  the  folks  that  are  out  in  it." 

Tenney  came  up  to  him  and  peered  clown  at  him  in 
blank  terror. 

"Who's  out  in  it?"  he  asked.     "Who've  you  seen?" 

Raven  laughed  jarringly.  It  did  seem  to  him  grimly 
amusing  to  be  dallying  thus  with  a  man's  fears.  He 
was  not  used  to  playing  games  with  the  human  creature's 
destiny.  He  had  always  looked  too  seriously  on  all  such 
drama,  perhaps  because  he  had  been  so  perplexed  by 
drama  of  his  own.  If  his  life  was  too  puzzling  a  thing 


146  OLD  CROW 

to  be  endured,  was  not  all  life,  perhaps,  equally  puzzling 
and  therefore  too  delicate  a  matter  to  be  meddled  with? 
But  now  the  game  was  on,  the  game  of  sheer  diplomacy. 
The  straight  and  obvious  path  wouldn't  do  if  he  was  to 
save  a  woman  who  handicapped  him  in  advance  by  refus 
ing  to  let  herself  be  saved. 

"The  night?"  he  repeated.  "Who's  out  in  it?  Why, 
I'm  out  in  it  myself ;  at  least,  I  have  been.  But  now  I'm 
here  by  this  stove,  I  don't  know  when  you'll  get  rid  of 
me.  Put  in  a  stick,  won't  you,  Tenney?  These  big  rooms 
have  a  way  of  cooling  off  before  you  know  it." 

Tenney  did  put  in  a  stick  and  more.  He  crammed  the 
stove  with  light  stuff  and  opened  draughts.  Raven  noted, 
in  the  keen  way  his  mind  had  taken  up,  of  snatching  at 
each  least  bit  of  safety  for  the  woman,  that  the  tea  kettle 
was  boiling.  She  would  be  chilled.  She  would  need  hot 
water.  And  suddenly  he  felt  the  blood  in  his  face.  There 
was  a  hand  at  the  latch  of  the  side  door.  Tenney,  too, 
heard  it.  He  threw  back  into  the  box  the  stick  of  wood 
he  had  selected  and  made  three  strides  to  the  entry. 
Again  he  called,  in  that  voice  of  sharp  anxiety: 

"That  you?" 

She  opened  the  door  just  before  he  could  put  out  his 
hand  to  it,  passed  him  without  a  look,  and  came  in.  He 
shut  the  door  and  followed  her.  Raven  got  up  from  his 
chair  and  stood,  glancing  at  her  with  what  he  hoped  was 
a  casual  attention.  Tenney  came  back  and,  when  she  had 
thrown  off  the  blanket,  took  it  from  her  hand  and  dropped 
it  on  a  chair.  He  was  all  trembling  eagerness.  That  act, 
the  relieving  her  of  the  blanket,  was  incredible  to  Raven. 
The  man  had  wanted  to  kill  her  (or,  at  the  least,  to  kill 
his  child),  and  he  was  humbly  inducting  her  into  the  com 
forts  of  her  home.  She  had  not  looked  toward  Raven. 
With  a  decorum  finer,  he  thought,  than  his  own,  she  would 


OLD  CROW  147 

not  play  the  game  of  diplomacy.  She  knew  him  and  she 
could  not  deny  him,  even  to  save  her  life.  Suddenly 
Tenney,  brushing  past  to  draw  up  a  chair  for  her 
at  the  stove,  became  aware  of  him.  Raven  believed  that, 
up  to  the  moment,  he  had,  to  the  man's  absorbed  ga/e, 
been  invisible.  Now  Tenney  seemed  to  recognize  the 
decencies  toward  even  an  unbidden  guest. 

"She's  all  beat  out,"  he  said,  in  uncouth  apology.  "It's 
my  woman." 

Raven  turned  to  her,  waiting  for  her  cue.  Would 
she  take  a  hand  at  the  game,  as  it  imposed  itself  on  him? 
Her  silence  and  aloofness  were  his  answer.  She  was 
sitting  forward  in  her  chair,  to  get  the  baby's  feet 
nearer  the  warmth.  But  since  she  would  not  speak, 
Raven  did. 

"I  should  think  any  one  would  be  beat  out,  a  night  like 
this,"  he  said,  as  casually  as  he  could  manage,  "carrying 
a  baby,  too,  in  such  a  storm.  You'd  better  be  careful  of 
the  child,  at  least,"  he  added  curtly,  turning  to  Tenney, 
"if  you  want  to  keep  him.  Out  in  this  cold  and  sleet! 
You  don't  want  their  deaths  on  your  hands,  do  you?" 

Tenney  stared  back  at  him  in  a  wildness  of  appre 
hension. 

"Be  you  a  doctor?"  he  managed  to  ask. 

Raven  remembered  the  words :  "Their  tongue  cleaved  to 
the  roof  of  their  mouth."  That  seemed  to  be  what  Ten- 
ney's  tongue  was  doing  now. 

"No,"  said  he,  "I'm  not  a  doctor,  but  I've  seen  a  good 
deal  of  sickness  in  the  War.  Get  them  warm,"  he  added 
authoritatively,  "both  of  them.  Put  the  child  into  warm 
water." 

"Yes,"  said  Tenney,  in  an  anguished  sort  of  haste. 
Then  to  his  wife  he  continued,  in  a  humility  Raven  noted 
as  her  best  guaranty  of  at  least  temporary  safety,  "I'll 


143  OLD  CROW 

bring  you  the  foot  tub,  an'  whilst  you're  doin'  it,  I'll  warm 
the  bed." 

"Yes,"  she  said  quietly,  but  with  a  composure  of  mas 
tery  in  her  voice.  "So  do." 

Raven  got  up  and  made  his  way  to  the  door.  Then  he 
bethought  himself  that  he  had  not  given  any  reason  for 
coming  and  that  Tenney  might  remember  it  afterward 
and  wonder. 

"I  thought  I'd  run  up,"  he  said,  "and  pay  you  for 
your  week's  work." 

Tenney  was  darting  about  with  a  small  tin  tub,  filling 
it  from  the  kettle  and  trying  the  temperature  with  his 
hand. 

"No,"  he  answered  absorbedly,  "I  can't  bother  with  that 
to-night.  Let  it  be  till  another  time." 

He  had  drawn  a  chair  to  his  wife's  side  and  set  the 
tub  on  it,  and  now  she  also  tried  the  temperature  while 
he  watched  her  anxiously.  And  at  once  the  baby  who,  in 
his  solemnity  of  silence,  had  seemed  to  Raven  hitherto  lit 
tle  more  than  a  stage  property,  broke  into  a  lusty  yelling, 
and  Tenney  put  out  his  hands  to  him,  took  him  to  his 
shoulder  and  began  to  walk  the  floor,  while  the  woman 
poured  more  water  into  the  tub.  Neither  of  them  had  a 
look  for  Raven,  and  he  went  out  into  the  blustering  night 
with  a  picture  etched  so  deeply  on  his  brain  that  he  knew 
it  would  always  be  there  while  he,  in  his  flesh,  survived : 
the  old  picture  of  the  sacred  three,  behind  the  defenses  of 
their  common  interests,  the  father,  mother  and  the  child. 


XIV 


All  that  night  Raven,  through  his  light  sleep,  had  a 
consciousness  of  holding  on  to  himself,  refusing  to  think, 
refusing  angrily  to  fear.  The  sleep  seemed  to  him  like  a 
thin,  slippery  coating  over  gulfs  unplumbed;  it  was  inse 
cure,  yet  it  failed  to  let  him  down  into  blessed  depths  of 
oblivion  below.  But  he  would  not  think  to  no  purpose 
(he  had  a  dread  of  the  wild,  disordered  clacking  of  the 
wheels  in  unproductive  thought),  and  he  would  not  invite 
again  the  strange  humiliation,  the  relief  tinged  by  aver 
sion,  that  came  over  him  when  he  felt,  on  leaving  them, 
the  inviolability  of  the  three  in  their  legal  bond.  She 
had  looked  to  him  so  like  heaven's  own,  he  had  upborne 
her  in  his  thought  almost  to  the  gate  of  heaven  itself ;  and 
yet  she  was  walled  in  by  a  bond  she  would  not  repudiate 
with  the  brute  who  persecuted  her.  In  spite  of  her  un 
couth  speech,  in  spite  of  her  ignorance  of  delicate  usage, 
she  seemed  to  him  a  creature  infinitely  removed  from  the 
rougher  aspects  of  this  New  England  life;  yet  there  she 
was  in  one  of  the  most  sordid  scenes  of  it,  and  she  was 
absorbed  by  it,  she  fitted  it  as  a  Madonna  fits  a  cave. 
And  what  business  had  he,  he  asked  angrily,  to  weave 
about  her  the  web  of  a  glorifying  sympathy,  exalting  her 
only  from  that  pernicious  habit  of  his  of  being  sorry? 
Yet,  as  he  thought  it,  he  knew  she  was  different  from  the 
ordinary  country  woman  afraid  of  her  man,  and  that  any 
fine  mantle  he  wove  for  her  could  not  equal  the  radiance 
of  her  pure  courage  and  undaunted  truth. 

149 


150  OLD  CROW 

Once  he  rose  from  his  bed  and  began  to  dress  hastily, 
with  what  he  recognized  at  the  same  moment  as  the  wild 
purpose  of  slipping  out  of  the  house  and  going  up  to 
Tenney's,  to  see  if  there  was  a  light  or  to  listen  for  the 
catamount  voice.  But  that,  he  realized  immediately,  was 
folly.  Suppose  Tenney  saw  him.  What  reason  could  he 
plant  in  the  man's  inflamed  mind,  except  one  more  hostile 
to  her  peace?  So  he  went  back  to  bed,  chilled,  and  was 
savagely  glad  of  his  discomfort.  It  gave  him  something, 
however  trivial,  to  think  about  besides  the  peril  of  a 
woman  who  looked  like  motherhood  incarnate,  and  so 
should  have  been  heir  to  all  the  worship  and  chivalry  of 
men.  With  the  first  light  he  was  up  and  had  built  his 
fire,  and  Charlotte,  hearing  him,  got,  sooner  than  was  her 
wont,  out  of  her  warm  bed.  Charlotte  owned  to  liking  to 
"lay  a  spell"  in  winter,  to  make  up  for  the  early  activities 
of  summer  mornings  when  you  must  be  "up  'fore  light" 
to  keep  pace  with  the  day.  For  after  nine  o'clock  "the 
day's  'most  gone."  She  looked  up  at  him  as  he  came  into 
the  kitchen  where  she  was  brashing  her  fire  for  a  quick 
oven,  and  he  found  her  eyes  clearly  worried  in  their  ques 
tioning. 

"No  toast,  Charlotte,"  he  said.  He  wondered  if  even 
his  voice  was  trembling  in  his  haste.  "No  biscuits.  I'm 
going  up  to  the  hut." 

Charlotte  nodded  and  seemed  to  settle  into  understand 
ing.  She  had  a  sympathetic,  almost  a  reverent  tolerance 
for  the  activities  of  pen  and  ink.  To  her,  Raven  was  a 
well-beloved  and  in  no  wise  a  remarkable  being  until  he 
stepped  into  the  clouded  room  of  literary  activity.  There 
she  would  have  indulged  him  in  any  whim  or  unaccount 
able  tyranny.  Charlotte  had  never  heard  of  temperament, 
but  she  believed  in  it.  Once  only  did  she  speak  to  him 
while  he  was  drinking  his  coffee : 


OLD  CHOW  151 

"You  got  any  ink  up  there?" 

He  started  and  looked  at  her  a  moment,  dazed.  Nothing 
was  further  from  his  mind  than  ink.  Other  liquids,  tears, 
waters  of  lethe,  lakes  of  fire  and  brimstone  would  not  have 
sounded  foreign  to  his  thought.  But  ink !  how  incal 
culably  far  was  the  life  of  the  written  word  from  this  raw 
anguish  of  reality  he  was  caught  in  to-day  !  He  recovered 
himself  instantly. 

"I've  got  my  pen,"  he  told  her,  "my  stylograph." 

And  presently  he  had  put  on  his  coat,  bidden  her  a 
hasty  good-by  and  was  plunging  up  the  slope.  Somehow, 
though  the  crest  of  the  wave  had  been  reached  the  night 
before  and  that  usually,  Tira  had  assured  him,  meant  a 
following  calm,  he  was  certain  of  seeing  her  to-day.  It 
was  not  that  he  wanted  to  see  her,  but  an  inner  conviction, 
implacably  fixed  as  the  laws  of  nature  that  are  at  no  point 
subject  to  the  desires  of  man,  told  him  she  would  come. 
The  hut  must  be  warm  for  her.  The  fire  must  be 
relaid.  And,  he  told  himself  grimly,  the  apex  had  been 
reached.  The  end  of  the  thing  was  before  them.  He 
must  not  yield  to  her  again.  He  must  command  her, 
persuade  and  conquer  her.  She  must  let  him  send  her 
away. 

At  the  hut  he  almost  expected  to  see  her  footprints  in 
the  light  snow  by  the  door.  But  the  exquisite  softness  lay 
untouched.  The  day  was  a  heaven  of  clearness,  the 
shadows  were  deep  blue  and  the  trees  beginning  the  slow 
waving  motion  of  their  majestic  secrecies.  He  took  out 
the  key  from  under  the  stone,  went  in  and  made  his  fire 
with  a  hand  too  practiced  to  lose  in  efficacy  from  its 
haste.  Presently  it  was  roaring  upward  and,  after  a 
glance  about  to  see  that  the  room  was  not  in  any  disorder 
too  great  for  him  to  remedy  quickly,  he  walked  back  and 
forth,  and  whenever  it  died  down  enough  to  let  him,  fed 


152  OLD  CROW 

the  fire.  It  began  to  seem  to  him  as  if  he  were  going  to 
be  there  days  feeding  the  fire  to  keep  her  warm,  but  it 
was  only  a  little  before  ten  when  he  heard  a  step  and  his 
heart  choLed  him  with  its  swelling  of  relief.  At  once  he 
was  also  calmer.  A  moment  ago  even,  he  would  have 
wondered  how  he  could  meet  her,  how  keep  the  storm  of 
entreaty  out  of  his  voice  if  he  was  to  beg  her  to  let  him 
save  her.  But  now  he  knew  he  should  be  himself  as  she 
had  briefly  known  him  and  though  he  must  command,  he 
should  in  no  sense  offend.  He  stood  still  by  the  fire,  half 
turning  toward  the  door,  to  wait.  It  was  an  unf  ormulated 
delicacy  of  his  attitude  toward  her  that  she  should  not 
find  him  going  forward  to  meet  her  as  if  she  were  a  guest. 
She  should  enter  as  if  the  house  were  her  own.  But  she 
did  not  enter.  There  was  a  hand  at  the  door.  It  knocked. 
Then  he  called: 

"Come  in." 

The  door  opened,  under  what  seemed  to  him,  in  his 
first  surprise,  a  halting  hand  and  a  woman  stepped  in. 
It  was  Nan.  She  came  a  hesitating  pace  into  the  room 
and  stood  looking  at  him,  after  the  one  interested  glance 
about  her,  smiling  a  little,  half  quizzically,  as  if  aware 
she  had  brought  a  surprise  and  yet  not  in  doubt  of  its 
being  welcome.  Raven  stared  back  at  her  for  one  be 
wildered  minute  and  then,  so  instant  and  great  was  the 
revulsion,  burst  into  a  shout  of  laughter.  Nan  stood 
there  and  laughed  with  him. 

"What  is  it,  Rookie?"  she  asked,  coming  forward  to 
him.  "I'm  funny,  I  suppose,  but  not  so  funny  as  all  that. 
What's  the  joke?" 

She  was  a  finished  sort  of  creature  to  come  into  his 
wood  solitude,  and  yet  an  outdoor  creature,  too,  with  her 
gray  fur  cap  and  coat.  She  looked  younger,  less  worn 
than  when  he  saw  her  last,  perhaps  because  her  cheeks 


OLD  CROW  153 

were  red  from  the  frosty  air  and  her  eyes  bright  at  finding 
him. 

"Let  me  have  your  coat,"  he  said.  "Come  to  the 
fire." 

She  took  off  her  coat  and  he  dropped  it  on  the  couch. 
He  pulled  a  chair  nearer  the  hearth  (it  was  his  own  chair, 
not  Tira's),  and  motioned  her  to  it.  She  did  not  sit. 
She  put  out  her  thickly  shod  foot  to  the  blaze  and  then 
withdrew  it,  for  she  was  all  aglow  from  her  plunge  up  the 
hill,  and  turned  to  him,  her  brows  knitted,  her  eyes  con 
sidering. 

"What  is  it,  Rookie?"  she  asked.  "Something's  up 
and  you  wish  I  hadn't  come.  That  it?" 

"I  haven't  had  time  to  wish  you  hadn't  come,"  he  said. 
He  had  to  be  straight  with  her.  "I  never  was  more  sur 
prised  in  my  life.  You  were  the  last  person  I  expected  to 
see." 

"But  why  d'you  laugh,  Rookie?"  she  persisted,  and 
then,  as  he  hesitated,  evidently  considering  exactly  why 
he  did  and  what  form  he  could  put  it  in,  she  concluded : 
"I  know.  You  were  taken  aback.  I've  done  the  same 
thing  myself,  often.  Well!"  She  seemed  to  dismiss  it 
as  unimportant  and  began  where  she  had  evidently  meant 
to  begin.  "Now  I'll  tell  you  what  I'm  here  for." 

"Sit  down,  Nan,"  he  bade  her. 

Now  that  his  first  derangement  was  over,  he  was  glad 
to  see  her.  Tira  might  not  come.  If  she  did,  he  could 
do  something.  He  could  even,  at  a  pinch  and  with  Tira's 
consent,  put  the  knowledge  of  the  tawdry  business  into 
Nan's  hands.  But  she  would  not  sit  down.  Plainly  she 
had  received  a  setback.  She  was  refusing  to  accept  his 
hospitality  to  any  informal  extent.  And  he  saw  he  had 
hurt  her.  He  was  always  reading  the  inner  minds  of 
people,  and  that  was  where  his  disastrous  sympathy  was 


154  OLD  CROW 

forever  leading  him :  to  that  pernicious  yielding,  that 
living  of  other  people's  lives  and  not  his  own. 

"It  was  only,"  he  said,  trying  to  pick  up  the  lost  thread 
of  her  confidence,  "that  I  didn't  expect  you.  I  couldn't 
have  dreamed  of  your  coming.  How  did  you  come  so 
early?" 

"Took  the  early  train,"  said  Nan  curtly. 

"Not  the  beastly  old  thing  that  starts  before  light?" 

She  nodded. 

"What  for?" 

"To  get  ahead  of  them,"  she  answered,  still  curtly. 

"Them?     Who?" 

"Dick  and  his  mother  and  Doctor  Brooke." 

"Dick  and  Amelia?    What's  Amelia  on  here  for?" 

He  had  half  expected  her  and  yet,  in  the  new  tur 
moil  about  him,  he  had  actually  forgotten  she  might 
come. 

"Because  Dick  sent  her  your  letter.  They  both  assume 
you've  broken  down,  and  she's  called  in  an  alienist  to 
come  up  here  and  eye  you  over,  and  Dick's  pretty  sick 
over  the  whole  business ;  so  he's  coming  along,  too.  He 
was  prepared  for  mother,  I  fancy,  but  not  the  alienist." 

"But  what's  it  all  for?" 

"Why,  you  know,  Rookie.     You've  broken  down." 

Raven  stared  at  her.     Then  he  laughed. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "let  'em  come.  Charlotte'll  give  'em 
some  dinner  and  they  can  look  at  the  mountain  and  go 
back  on  the  six  to-night." 

"That's  precisely  what  they  won't  do,"  said  Nan,  her 
lips  tightening.  "At  least  your  sister.  She's  going  to 
stay." 

"The  deuce  she  is,"  said  Raven.  "What  for?" 

Then  Nan  did  break  out  of  the  stiffness  that  seemed 
to  have  held  her  like  an  armor  since  the  momentary  set- 


OLD  C'ROW  155 

back  of  her  coming.  Her  own  laugh  ran  over  her  face 
and  creased  it  into  delighted  merriment. 

"Why,  don't  you  see?"  she  asked  him.  "To  brighten 
your  life." 

Raven's  eyes  met  hers  with  a  rueful  terror.  He 
reached,  at  a  leap,  the  motive  for  her  coming. 

"And  you  rushed  off  up  here  to  tell  me,"  he  said. 
"Dear  Nan !  Good  child !  But  you  don't  mean  they're 
actually  coming  to-day?" 

"Of  course  I  do,"  she  said  impatiently.  "Didn't  I  tell 
you  so?  They  were  going  to  take  the  nine.  They're  well 
on  the  way.  They'll  get  a  pung  or  something  at  the 
station  and  be  driving  up  to  the  house  presently,  and  your 
sister'll  give  Charlotte  the  hamper  of  provisions  she 
brought  and  tell  her  there'll  be  four  to  dinner.  There'll 
be  five,  though.  She  didn't  know  that.  She  didn't  hear 
about  me.  I  s'pose  you'll  ask  me  to  stay." 

Raven  put  out  his  hand  and  stroked  her  sleeve.  This 
was  the  first  time  she  had  seemed  to  him  a  woman  grown. 
When  she  came  back  from  school,  those  years  ago,  she 
had  changed  to  girlhood.  It  was  the  girl  always  even 
when  she  came  home  from  France  with  a  world  of  hideous 
memories  sealed  away  in  her  heart  and  brain.  They  had 
not,  these  memories,  seemed  so  much  as  to  scar  her,  she 
had  obliterated  them  so  carefully  by  the  decorum  of  her 
desire  to  make  the  world  no  sadder  by  her  knowledge. 
But  now,  at  some  call,  the  call  of  his  personal  extremity 
perhaps,  she  looked  suddenly  forceful  and  mature,  as  if 
her  knowledge  of  life  had  escaped  her  restraining  hand  and 
burst  out  to  the  aid  of  a  knowledge  of  him. 

"I  don't  exactly  know,"  he  said,  "what  to  do  with  them. 
I  don't  mind  the  alienist  of  course;  but  what  do  you  sup 
pose  put  it  into  her  head — Amelia's — to  bring  him 
along?" 


156  OLD  CROW 

"Why,"  said  Nan,  "it's  precisely  the  thing  she  would 
do.  Don't  you  see?  She  does  everything  by  rule,  by 
theory,  the  most  modern,  most  advanced.  When  Dick 
wrote  her,  she  made  up  her  mind  like  a  shot.  She  had  to 
put  you  in  a  pigeon  hole.  Shell  shock,  cafard!  So  the 
next  thing  was  to  set  a  specialist  on  the  job.  And  there 
you  are." 

Raven  grinned.  The  whole  thing  was  more  and  more 
fantastic  to  him. 

"I  wonder  how  Dick  likes  the  hornet's  nest,"  he  reflected, 
"now  he's  stirred  it  up." 

"I  can  tell  you,"  said  Nan,  a  little  white  coming  round 
her  lips,  as  it  did  when  she  was  excited,  "how  he  liked  me. 
He  told  me  the  whole  business  last  night  and  I  went  for 
him.  I  told  him  he  was  a  fool,  a  plain  downright  fool, 
and  he'd  seen  his  last  of  me  till  he  got  us  out  of  the  mess 
he'd  got  us  into :  you,  me,  and  incidentally  himself." 

"It  is  mighty  nice  of  you  to  come  into  it,"  said  Raven. 

"Well,  how  could  I  help  it?"  she  asked  impetuously, 
"when  you're  in?  Why,  Rookie,  wouldn't  you — 

There  she  stopped,  and  Raven  answered  the  implication. 

"You  bet  I  would.  What  concerns  you  concerns  me. 
But  I'd  no  business  to  assume  it's  the  other  way  about. 
That  is,  when  it's  Dick.  You're  bound,  you  know,"  he 
said,  in  a  tentative  way  he  thought  he  ought  to  venture 
and  yet  not  quite  sure  of  it,  "to  stand  by  Dick." 

Nan  turned  a  little,  to  look  at  him  fully. ,  She  seemed 
to  be  angry  now,  and  well  it  became  her. 

"Why  am  I?"  she  demanded.  "Why  am  I  bound  to 
stand  by  Dick?  I'm  bound  to  nothing,  with  any  man, 
Dick  least  of  all,  if  he  won't  devote  some  of  his  surplus 
energy  to  growing  up.  So  I've  told  him.  He's  got  to 
grow  up."  But  suddenly  she  seemed  to  recall  herself  to 
another  question,  put  her  personal  anger  aside  and  veered 


OLD  CROW  157 

to  that.  "Rookie,"  she  said,  "what  about  Aunt  Anne's 
will?" 

"Anne's  will?"  he  repeated,  staring  at  her.  "Well, 
what  about  it?" 

"You've  had  notice  of  it,  haven't  you?"  she  asked. 
"Official  notice,  that  is?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  said,  "before  I  left  town.  Whitney  went 
over  the  whole  ground."  But  he  said  it  as  if  it  did  not 
interest  him  to  any  degree.  And  yet,  as  she  amazedly 
thought,  it  had,  the  last  time  she  saw  him,  interested  him 
to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else. 

"I  thought  I'd  remind  you,"  she  said,  "that  it's  been  in 
the  papers.  You  are  Miss  Anne  Hamilton's  residuary 
legatee.  Dick  knows  it.  So  does  your  sister.  She'll  ask 
you  things.  I  thought  if  you'd  made  up  your  mind  to 
refuse  it  or,  in  short,  anything  about  it,  you'd  want  to 
be  prepared  for  her.  Those  questions  of  hers — you  can't 
evade  them.  They  go  to  the  bottom  of  your  soul — and 
then  some." 

"Oh,"  said  Raven  dazedly,  recalling  himself  to  a  com 
plexity  he  had  all  but  forgotten.  "So  they  do.  I  dare 
say  she  will  ask  me.  But  I  don't — Nan,  to  tell  the  truth, 
I  haven't  thought  of  it  at  all." 

The  inevitable  comment  sprung  up  in  Nan's  mind,  as 
if  his  words  had  touched  a  spring,  releasing  it : 

"What  have  you  been  thinking  then?" 

And  as  if  in  exact  comment  upon  that,  came  a  sound 
at  the  door,  a  knock,  a  hand  on  the  latch  and  Tira 
stepped  in.  Nan  turned  sharply,  and  Raven  had  only  to 
lift  his  eyes  to  see  the  picture  his  mind  had  painted  for 
him.  There  she  was,  a  little  color  in  her  cheeks  from  the 
air,  her  eyes  heavy,  as  if  she  had  not  slept.  She  carried 
the  child  in  his  little  white  coat  and  cap,  showing,  Raven 
concluded,  that  she  had  not  been  forced  to  leave  the  house 


158  OLD  CROW 

in  desperate  haste.  For  an  instant  she  confronted  Nan; 
the  life  in  her  face  seemed  to  go  out  and  leave  her 
haggard.  Then,  before  Raven  could  take  more  than  the 
one  step  forward  to  meet  her,  she  had  turned  and  shut 
the  door  behind  her. 

"Wait  for  me,"  he  threw  back  over  his  shoulder  at  Nan 
and  ran  out. 


XV 


Tira  was  hurrying  through  the  snowy  track,  ankle  deep 
at  every  step.  Raven,  bareheaded,  ran  after.  In  a 
minute  he  had  overtaken  her. 

"Stop !"  he  called,  breathless,  more  from  his  emotion 
than  from  haste.  "Stop !  I  tell  you." 

She  did  stop,  and  he  came  up  with  her.  Now,  at  last, 
there  were  tears  in  her  eyes,  and  he  thought  angrily  that 
he  had  been  the  one  to  overthrow  her  control  more  abso 
lutely  than  the  danger  she  apprehended.  He  had,  he 
thought,  in  this  unreasoning  anger,  promised  her  asylum 
in  the  hut  and  she  found  it  invaded.  But  curiously 
he  did  not  think  of  Nan,  who  had  come  uninvited  and 
scared  the  poor  fugitive  away.  Nan,  child  and  woman, 
was  always  negligible,  too  near  him  to  be  dealt  with.  But 
he  had  offered  this  woman  the  safety  of  a  roof  and  walls, 
and  she  had  fled  out  of  it.  At  sight  of  his  face,  its  con 
trite  kindliness,  her  own  set  again  into  its  determined 
composure.  She  seemed  to  see  that  she  could  not  count 
on  aid  outside  herself  and  returned  again  uncomplain 
ingly  to  her  old  equilibrium  of  endurance. 

"Come  back,"  he  said.  "She's  going  down  to  the  house 
with  me.  Besides,  if  she  did  stay,  you'd  like  her.  You'd 
love  her.  That's  only  Nan." 

He  said  "Nan"  of  set  purpose.  It  was  the  custom  of 
this  country  folk,  when  they  talked  among  themselves,  to 
call  all  alike  by  their  Christian  names,  even  when  they 

159 


160  OLD  CROW 

scrupulously  used  the  surname  in  direct  address.  He 
meant  to  reassure  her.  It  was  a  way  of  bringing  Nan  into 
a  friendly  nearness. 

"You've  heard  of  her,"  he  said,  "Miss  Hamilton's  niece. 
She  owns  the  next  house  to  mine,  the  Hamilton  house. 
She'll  be  here  this  summer.  You'll  be  neighbors.  Come 
back  and  speak  to  her." 

"No,"  said  Tira,  in  a  gentle  obstinacy.  "I  guess  I'll 
be  gittin'  along  toward ' 

Here  she  stopped.  She  did  not  know  what  the  direc 
tion  or  the  end  of  her  journey  was  to  be. 

"You're  not  going  off  the  place,"  said  Raven  bluffly. 
"That's  flat.  The  place  is  mine  and  you're  safe  on  it. 
Do  you  want  to  go  traipsing  round  the  woods  in  this 
snow" — he  fell  purposely  into  the  country  habit  of  speech 
— "and  get  wet  to  your  knees  and  have  a  cold?" 

"I  sha'n't  have  a  cold,"  she  said,  smiling  dimly  at  him 
and  looking,  as  he  realized,  like  a  mother  who  was  sorry 
her  son  could  not  have  all  he  grasped  at,  but  still  re 
mained  immovable.  "I  don't  hardly  remember  havin'  one 
since  I  was  little." 

The  child  had  resumed  the  role  of  Buddhistic  calm  tem 
porarily  abandoned  last  night  when  he  screamed  out  his 
distaste  for  earthly  complications,  and  Raven,  glancing 
at  the  solemn  blue  eyes,  saw  that  the  only  hope  of  moving 
her  lay  in  him. 

"Do  you  want,"  he  shot  at  random,  "to  have  the  baby 
get  chilled — and  hungry?"  There  he  broke  off,  though 
he  saw  that  did  move  her.  He  had  to  know  from  what 
extremity  she  fled.  "Has  this  been  going  on  all  night?" 
he  asked. 

"No,"  she  said,  with  the  same  air  of  gently  reassuring 
him.  "I  slept  'most  all  night.  So  did  he,  Mr.  Tenney,  I 
guess.  An'  we  started  out  all  right  this  mornin'.  But 


OLD  CROW  161 

after  he'd  read  the  chapter  an'  prayed,  it  all  come  over 
him  ag'in,  an'  I  had  to  go." 

"After  he'd  read  his  chapter,"  said  Raven.  "And 
prayed !  God !" 

The  invocation  sounded  as  if  he  also  prayed. 

"This  time,"  she  continued,  "he — he  seemed  to  have  a 
realizin'  sense." 

She  paused  a  perplexed  moment.  In  the  little  she  had 
said  to  Raven,  he  had  noted  from  the  first  that  she  was 
often  blocked  by  a  difficulty  in  finding  words  she  thought 
adequate.  "He  seemed  to  know  what  was  comin',"  she 
said.  "He  give  me  warnin'." 

"Warning?" 

"Yes.  He  come  in  an'  he  says  to  me,  'You  don't  want 
to  go  traipsin'  round  in  this  snow.'  ' 

Raven  noted  the  word  and  smiled  slightly.  He  and 
Tenney  were  at  one  in  their  care  for  her. 

"  'You  go  up  chamber,'  he  says,  'an'  have  a  fire  in  the 
air-tight  an'  turn  the  key.  I  dunno,'  he  says,  'what's 
goin'  to  happen,  this  day.  I  dunno.5 ' 

"Why  didn't  you?"  asked  Raven. 

"I  didn't  hardly  dast  to,"  she  said,  with  her  clear  look 
at  him.  "I  knew  if  he  knew  I's  up  there  he  never  could 
stan'  it  till  he — broke  in  the  door." 

Raven  could  only  look  at  her. 

"Besides,"  she  said,  "even  if  I  be  safer  in  the  house, 
I  don't  feel  so,  somehow.  I've  always  lived  a  good  deal 
out  door." 

"So  you  came  away,"  said  Raven  quietly.  "You  came 
here."  The  words  really  were,  "You  came  to  me,"  but  he 
would  not  say  them. 

"I  did  lock  the  chamber  door,"  she  said,  "jest  as  he 
said.  But  I  locked  it  on  the  outside  an'  took  away  the 
key.  I  thought  he'd  think  I  was  there  an'  it  might  keep 


162  OLD  CROW 

him  out  a  spell,  an'  when  he  did  git  in,  it'd  give  him  a 
kind  of  a  shock  an'  bring  him  to.  It  does,"  she  added 
simply.  "It  always  gives  him  a  shock,  not  findin'  me. 
He's  asked  me  over  'n'  over  ag'in,  when  he  come  to,  not 
to  make  way  with  myself,  but  I  never'd  answer.  He's 
got  it  before  him,  an'  that's  about  all  there  is  in  my  favor, 
far  as  I  can  see." 

The  gentle  monotony  of  her  voice  was  maddening  to 
Raven ;  it  brought  him  such  terrible  things,  like  a  wind 
carrying  the  seeds  of  some  poisonous  plant  that,  if  they 
were  allowed  to  spring  up,  would  overrun  the  world  of  his 
hopes  for  her. 

"You  wouldn't  promise  him,"  he  said  thickly,  "but 
you'll  promise  me.  Promise  me  now.  Whatever  happens 
to  you,  you  won't  make  way  with  yourself." 

"Why,  of  course  I  sha'n't,"  she  said,  as  if  in  some  sur 
prise  that  he  should  ask  it.  "How  could  I?  Not  while 
there's  baby." 

This  threw  him  back  to  the  sanity  of  their  common 
cause.  They  were  both  to  fight,  he  for  her  and  she  for 
the  mother's  one  absorbing  task:  the  child.  He  returned 
to  his  old  grave  way  with  her. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "you're  going  to  do  exactly  what  I 
tell  you.  If  you  won't  go  back  to  the  hut  and  see  Nan, 
you're  to  stay  here  until  I've  got  Nan  and  taken  her  down 
to  the  house.  And  we  sha'n't  come  up  here  at  all,  unless  I 
come  to  bring  you  something  to  eat." 

"I  don't  want,"  she  hesitated,  "to  put  her  out." 

"Nan?  You  don't  put  her  out.  She  only  came  because 
she  didn't  find  me  at  the  house.  If  you  don't  do  precisely 
what  I  tell  you,  that'll  be  putting  everybody  out.  I  shall 
make  an  awful  row.  Do  you  hear  me?" 

She  smiled,  a  little  flicker  of  a  smile.  She  might  not 
like  to  be  pursued  by  jealousy  incarnate,  but  she  was, 


OLD  CROW  163 

he   saw,   rather   amused  at  being   fraternally   tyranni/ed 
over. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "I'm  going.  You're  to  stand  here  in 
your  tracks,  and  when  I've  sent  Nan  down  the  path  I'll 
come  and  get  you." 

He  gave  her  no  time  to  object,  but  went  back  to  the 
hut,  and  in  to  solitude  and  a  deadening  fire.  He  threw 
open  the  door  of  the  other  room,  though  Nan  would  surely 
not  be  there,  and  swore  at  not  finding  her.  Womenfolk 
were  giving  him  a  good  deal  of  trouble  with  their  exits  and 
their  entrances.  He  mended  the  fire,  snatched  up  his  cap 
and  gloves  and  went  out  again,  up  the  path  to  Tira.  She 
was  standing  motionless  precisely,  he  thought,  in  the 
tracks  where  he  had  left  her,  and  the  Buddhistic  child 
indifferently  regarded  him. 

"Come  on,"  Raven  called  to  her,  stopping  at  a  pace 
from  them.  "She's  on  her  way  down  along,  and  there's  a 
good  fire." 

She  started  obediently  after  him  and  Raven,  though 
he  saw  in  her  slowness  the  hesitating  desire  to  express  her 
distaste  for  putting  any  one  out,  paid  no  attention  but 
went  on  ahead  and  opened  the  door. 

"Keep  up  the  fire,"  he  bade  her.  "I'll  be  back  along 
about  one  and  bring  you  something  to  eat.  The  little 
chap,  too.  We  mustn't  forget  him." 

She  had  stepped  inside  and  he  was  about  closing  the 
door;  but  she  turned  and  seemed  to  recover  her  attitude 
of  protest. 

"No,"  she  said,  "don't  you  bring  up  anything.  I  shall 
be  gone  long  'fore  then." 

"Why,  no,  you  won't,"  said  Raven  impatiently.  "You're 

not  going  back  into  that "  he  paused,  seeking  a  word 

that  should  not  offend  her.     She  had  clung  to  incredible 
loyalties.     Perhaps  she  even  clung  to  her  home. 


164  OLD  CROW 

"Oh,"  she  said  earnestly,  "it'll  be  over  by  then,  an' 
he'll  want  his  dinner." 

Tenney  would  want  his  dinner !  He  had  no  words  for 
that.  He  turned  away.  But  she  seemed  to  feel  the  finality 
of  his  going.  Was  he  giving  her  up?  She  put  the  child 
down  on  the  couch  and  turned  to  follow.  Raven  was  just 
closing-  the  door. 

"Don't !"  she  cried.  There  was  piercing  entreaty  in 
her  voice.  "Don't !" 

It  was  really  begging  him  not  to  give  her  up,  and 
though  he  did  not  clearly  understand  it  so,  he  knew  he  was 
forcing  on  her  something  to  bear,  in  addition  to  all  the 
rest.  She  must  not  think  that  of  him.  She  must  feel 
safe,  in  whatever  manner  it  was  easiest  for  her  to  accept 
safety.  He  smiled  back  at  her  in  that  way  Anne  Hamil 
ton,  when  she  had  caught  him  smiling  at  Nan,  thought  so 
maddeningly  beautiful.  Poor  Anne !  She  had  starved 
for  the  sweetness  of  what  seemed  to  her,  in  her  hunger  of 
the  heart,  an  almost  benedictory  tenderness. 

"Don't  you  worry,"  he  said  to  Tira,  in  the  phrasing  he 
unconsciously  adopted  to  her.  "Everything's  going  to  be 
exactly  as  you  want  it.  Only,"  he  added  whimsically — a 
tone  she  had  never  heard  in  her  life  before — "if  I  could 
have  my  say  for  a  few  hours,  it  would  be  to  find  you  here 
when  I  come  back." 

He  closed  the  door  and  hurried  down  the  path,  moved 
even  beyond  his  pity  by  the  certainty  that  she  was  nearer 
him.  She  had  accepted  that  strange  community  of  in 
terest  between  them.  She  had  to  be  saved  and  he  was  to 
save  her.  Now  it  would  be  easier.  He  had  no  thought 
but  to  find  Nan  down  at  the  house,  but  two-thirds  of  the 
way  along  the  path  he  saw  her,  sitting  on  a  slant  of  the 
great  boulder  and  looking  grave.  She  was  not  the  Nan 
who  had  come  to  the  hut,  a  half  hour  ago,  so  gaily  cer- 


OLD  CROW  165 

tain  of  her  welcome.  The  two  women  had  shied  at  the 
sight  of  each  other.  He  had  cleared  up  the  situation  for 
the  one,  and  now  he  had  to  do  it  for  Nan.  That  was  sim 
ple.  He  had  never  known  her  to  fail  in  understanding. 
He  came  up  to  her  and  she  raised  her  eyes,  earnest  now, 
startled,  to  his. 

"Aren't  you  too  cold  there?"  he  asked. 

She  shook  her  head  and  smiled  a  little. 

"No,  not  with  my  fur.  I'm  afraid  the  gray  squirrels 
will  see  me.  What  would  they  think  of  skinning  so  many 
of  their  little  brothers?" 

"Nan,"  he  said,  "you  saw  her." 

She  nodded,  slid  off  the  rock  and  stood  there,  not  look 
ing  at  him.  Of  course  she  saw  her,  Nan's  inner  self  was 
answering.  Didn't  they  meet  face  to  face?  But  she  knew 
this  was  but  his  beginning  and  she  would  not  challenge 
it.  He  plunged  into  the  turmoil  of  Tira's  affairs,  foreign 
to  him  so  short  a  time  ago  and  yet  his. 

"She's  the  wife  of  the  man  who  bought  the  old  Frye 
place,  next  to  yours.  He's  jealous  of  her,  has  fits  of  in 
sane  rage  against  her  and  she  has  to  get  out.  One  day  I 
found  her  hiding  up  here  in  the  woods.  I  told  her,  when 
ever  she  had  to  make  tracks  to  come  here  to  the  hut, 
and  build  a  fire  and  stay.  I  leave  the  key  under  the 
stone." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan.  "I  see." 

"No,  you  don't,"  cried  Raven,  "or  you  wouldn't  look 
like  that.  What  is  it  you  don't  see?  What  is  it  you 
don't  like?  Out  with  it,  Nan." 

Nan  said  nothing,  and  suddenly  he  saw  she  was  trem 
bling.  It  was  in  her  lips,  it  must  be  all  over  her,  because 
he  could  see  it  in  her  hands,  the  tight  shut  ball  of  them 
under  her  long  sleeves. 

"Now,"    he    said,    irritated    beyond    measure    by    the 


166  OLD  CROW 

unkindnoss  of  circumstance,  "what  is  it  I  haven't 
made  clear?  Don't  you  like  her?  Don't  you  believe 
in  her?  Or  don't  you  take  any  stock  in  what  I  tell 
you?" 

"Of  course  I  believe  you,"  said  Nan  quietly.  He  could 
see  her  relax.  "As  for  liking  her — welf,  she's  beautiful. 
I  agree  with  you  perfectly  there." 

But  he  had  not  said  she  was  beautiful.  That  he  did 
not  remember. 

"She  is,  isn't  she?"  he  agreed.  "And  so — Nan,  she's 
the  strangest  creature  you  ever  saw  in  your  life.  I  sup 
pose  I  could  count  up  the  words  she's  spoken  to  me.  But 
the  queer  part  of  it  is,  I  know  they're  all  true.  I  know 
she's  true.  I'd  stake "  there  he  paused. 

"Yes,"  said  Nan  quietly.  "I've  no  doubt  she's  true. 
And  she's  a  very  lucky  woman." 

"Lucky?"  repeated  Raven,  staring.  "She's  the  most 
unfortunate  creature  I  ever  saw.  Lucky !  what  do  you 
mean  by  that?" 

"Well,"  said  Nan,  and  now  she  spoke  with  an  edge 
in  her  voice,  "what's  she  going  to  do  about  it?  She's  in 
danger  of  her  life,  you  say."  He  nodded  absently,  his 
mind  going  back  to  that  word,  lucky.  "She's  afraid  of 
her  husband,  afraid  he'll  kill  her." 

"Not  so  much  that  as  afraid  he'll  kill  the  child." 

"Well,  then,  isn't  she  going  to  leave  him?" 

"No.     She  won't." 

"Have  you  asked  her?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Raven.  "I  asked  her  at  once.  I  told 
her  I'd  send  her  away  from  here,  find  her  something  to 
do:  just  what  anybody'd  say  in  a  case  like  that." 

"And  she  wouldn't  let  you?" 

"She  wouldn't  let  me." 

"Why  not?"  asked  Nan.     "Does  she— love  the  brute?" 


OLD  CROW  167 

She  might  have  flicked  a  lash  across  his  face  and  his 
nerves  winced  under  it.  There  was,  she  saw,  in  his  mind, 
something  disparaging  to  the  woman  in  coupling  her  with 
a  softness  misplaced. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said,  with  a  thoughtful  precision. 
"Sometimes  I  think  she's  all  mother:  doesn't  care  about 
.in v tiling  but  the  child.  I  know  she's  square,  knew  it  at 
once,  but  that  doesn't  mean  I  know  any  more  about  her. 
She's  a  locked  door  to  me." 

His  tone  was  low,  but  it  told  Nan  how  he  wished  the 
door  would  open  and  let  him  in  to  persuade  her  to  her  own 
well-being.  She  looked  at  him  a  moment,  as  he  stood 
^taring  down  at  his  feet  where  a  ragged- wisp  of  yellowed 
brake  came  through  the  snow,  looked  as  if  he  hurt  her 
beyond  endurance,  and  yet  she  had  to  probe  ill  circum 
stance  to  its  depths.  Then  she  spoke,  but  in  her  old  voice 
of  childlike  gentleness  toward  him : 

"I  see.     I  really  believe,  Rookie,  I  do  see." 

He  looked  up  at  her  in  a  palpable  relief. 

"That's  a  good  girl,"  he  said.  Again  she  was  half  child 
to  him.  "You'll  take  a  hand,  too,  won't  you?" 

That  was  more  than  she  had  bargained  for.  She  would 
believe  in  the  mysterious  woman  and  leave  him  free  to 
carry  out  any  mission,  however  sophistical  or  chivalrous, 
lie  would.  But  she  had  not  expected  to  enter  the  arena 
with  him  and  defend  the  martyr  thrown  to  the  wild  beast 
of  marital  savagery.  Raven  felt  her  recoil. 

"I  can't  do  anything  for  her,"  he  pursued,  with  a  dis 
couragement  she  read.  "Anything  real,  that  is.  I  can 
give  her  the  shelter  of  the  hut,  but  he'll  find  that  out  some 
day  and  go  crashing  in.  I  can't  be  there  always.  Fact 
is,  I  can't  be  there  at  all." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan.  "I  see."  There  was  in  her  voice  a 
sweetness  new  to  him.  "I'll  do  anything  you  say, 


168  OLD  CROW 

Rookie,  to  make  your  mind  easy.  What  do  you  want  me 
to  do.  Take  her  away  from  here?" 

He  considered  a  moment.  Yes,  that  was  really  what  he 
did  want.  She  had  put  the  words  into  his  mouth. 

"But,"  said  Nan  practically,  "what  you've  got  to  do 
now  is  to  go  down  to  the  house  and  be  tried  for  your  life. 
Your  sister'll  be  there  something  after  two.  And  Dick. 
And  the  alienist." 

Raven  shrugged  his  shoulders  as  if  he  shook  them  free 
of  a  burden. 

"I  don't  care  anything  about  the  alienist,"  he  said. 
"Nor  Dick.  I  do  care  a  lot  about  Amelia.  She's  an  awful 
bore.  But  it  can't  be  helped.  Come  on  down." 

"You  know,"  said  Nan  tentatively,  as  they  took  the 
road,  "we  could  ask  Charlotte  for  a  luncheon  and  go  off 
over  the  mountain.  You've  got  snowshoes,  haven't  you?" 

Raven  shook  his  head. 

"You  can't  foil  Amelia,"  he  said,  "by  running  away 
from  her.  She'd  camp  for  the  winter.  Or  she'd  get  on 
our  trail  and  follow  us.  No,  we've  got  to  see  it  through." 


XVI 


At  the  house  they  found  Charlotte,  in  a  silent  alertness, 
making  ready  for  the  guests  whom  Nan,  before  going  up 
to  the  hut,  had  announced  to  her.  She  was  systematically 
refusing  to  be  flurried,  but  Raven  knew  that  Amelia,  with 
her  rigid  conventions  and  perilous  activity,  was  a  disquiet 
ing  guest.  Remembering  that,  he  took  the  incident  witli 
an  ostentatious  lightness,  and  Nan  followed  his  lead. 
Presently  Charlotte's  kind  face  relaxed,  and  when  they 
saw  she  was  continuing  her  preparations  with  a  less 
troubled  brow,  Raven  took  Nan  upstairs  to  the  great  west 
room  made  ready  for  his  sister  with  a  fire  roaringly  active. 
There  he  installed  her,  and  when  she  reminded  him  that 
the  room  had  been  wakened  from  its  winter  drowse  to  this 
exhilaration  for  Amelia,  he  bade  her  "hush  up  and  stay 
put."  Two  facts  were  paramount:  she  was  the  first  comer 
and  this  was  the  best  room.  But,  Nan  said,  she  wasn't 
going  to  stay  over  night.  She  should  get  the  six  o'clock 
back  to  Boston.  Raven  might  here  have  reflected  that,  if 
she  had  merely  the  fact  of  Amelia's  coming  to  break  to 
him,  she  could  have  done  it  by  telephone.  Was  there 
something  in  the  unexpectedness  of  finding  him  immersed 
in  the  problem  of  Tira  that  had  overthrown  her  precon 
ceived  plan?  Had  she,  finding  him  absorbed  in  a  new 
association,  lost  immediate  interest  in  the  drama  she  had 
mischievously  meant  to  share? 

"I  take  it  for  granted,"  she  said,  "you'll  let  Jerry  carry 
me  to  the  station." 

169 


170  OLD  CROW 

"No,"  said  Raven,  impishly  determined,  "you're  going 
to  stay.  You'll  borrow  nighties  and  things  from  Amelia." 

"Seethe  the  kid  in  its  mother's  milk?"  inquired  Nan, 
her  own  impishness  flashing  up,  irresistible.  "Come  up 
here  to  undermine  her  and  then  borrow  her  things?" 

"Seethe  the  kid  in  its  own  tooth  paste,"  said  Raven. 
"Yes,  you're  simply  going  to  stay.  It's  foreordained. 
Actually  you  came  up  here  to  help  me  out  in  more 
ways  than  one." 

"Did  I?"  she  asked,  and  reflected.  She  had  one  of  her 
moments  of  clever  guesswork  over  him.  Rookie  was  a 
simple  proposition.  She  could  always,  she  had  once 
boasted  to  him,  find  him  out.  And  reaching  about  for  the 
clue,  suddenly  she  had  it  and  proclaimed  it  in  triumph. 

"I've  got  it.  Your  farmer's  wife !  you  want  me  to  do 
something,  something  she  won't  let  you  do.  It's  what  we 
said.  You  wrant  me  to  take  her  back  with  me." 

"Yes,"  he  said.     "Just  that." 

They  stood  looking  at  each  other  gravely  in  the  silence 
of  the  gaily  flowered  room  with  the  great  blaze  rushing 
up  the  chimney.  It  might  have  seemed  that  they  were 
measuring  each  other.  Yet  they  were  inadequately 
matched,  for  though  Raven  knew  Nan,  it  was  not  espe 
cially  in  her  relation  to  him,  and  she  knew  herself  and 
him  intimately,  in  their  common  bond.  The  woman  was 
the  more  intuitive,  but  the  man  was  no  less  honest.  She 
thought  a  moment  now,  her  gaze  unseeingly  following  the 
pattern  of  the  rug  at  her  feet. 

"Very  well,"  she  said.  "I'll  go  over  to  the  house  and 
get  some  things,  and  I'll  stay." 

There  were,  they  both  knew,  bureau  drawers  full  of 
Aunt  Anne's  things,  doubtless  in  the  perfect  order  that 
was  a  part  of  her  exquisite  mastery  of  life.  She  disliked 
traveling  with  a  cumbersome  outfit,  even  from  the  city  to 


OLD  CROW  171 

this  ancestral  foothold.     Everything  possible  was  left  be 
hind  her  in  each  place. 

"I'll  go  with  you,"  said  Raven.  She  should  not  poke 
into  the  cold  house  alone  for  the  first  time  since  she  had 
inherited  it,  and  encounter  the  desolation  of  change. 

They  went  downstairs  and  out  into  the  road,  Charlotte 
looking  from  the  window  after  them  and  wondering  if  they 
were  bound  on  some  jaunt  that  would  leave  her  to  encoun 
ter  Mrs.  Powell  undefended.     Nan's  spirits  always  came 
up  in  the  out-of-doors.     She  was  a  normal  creature,  need 
ing  to  be  quickened  only  by  full  air.     She  began  to  laugh. 
"Rookie,"  she  said,  "I  could  tell  you  something  funny." 
"Fire  away,"  said  Raven. 

"It's  about  my  staying.  I  didn't  bring  any  real  things, 
because  I  knew  I  could  come  over  here  and  get  some,  but 
my  toothbrush  is  right  here  in  my  coat  pocket.  Don't 
you  see,  Rookie?  I  was  going  to  stay  if  you  made  me,  but 
not  if  you  didn't,  and  you  weren't  to  know  I  so  much  as 
thought  of  it." 

"Humbug!"  said  Raven.  "I  might  ha'  knowed." 
They  came  to  the  house,  a  great  yellow  square,  well 
back  from  the  road,  and  there  being  no  path  through  the 
snow,  Nan  boasted  of  her  boots  and  laughed  at  him  for 
ordering  her  to  wait  until  he  went  back  for  a  shovel.  So 
he  strode  ahead  and  broke  a  path  and  she  followed,  and 
he  was  not  really  concerned  for  her  because  she  looked  so 
fit;  it  seemed  unlikely  the  natural  conditions  of  nature 
would  hurt  her,  however  hostile.  She  opened  the  door 
with  the  key  produced  from  her  coat  pocket  and  stepped 
into  the  great  hall,  darkened  from  the  obscurity  of  the 
rooms  on  each  side  where  shades  had  been  drawn,  and  a 
winter  coldness  reigned.  Nan  gave  herself  no  time  to 
shiver  over  the  chill  of  her  homecoming,  but  ran  up  the 
stairs  as  if  she  expected  to  find  the  sun  at  the  end,  and 


172  OLD  CROW 

Raven  stood  in  the  hall,  waiting,  and  the  presence  of  Anne 
seemed  suddenly  beside  him,  and  something  he  tried  to 
think  of  as  the  winter  cold  (though  it  was  far  more  pene 
trating  and  ethereal)  struck  him  with  a  chill.  Anne,  the 
poignant  memory  of  her,  was  certainly  there  with  him  as 
he  stood  absently  following  with  his  eyes  the  bridge- 
crossed  road  of  the  old  landscape  paper  and  thinking  how 
different  it  used  to  look  when  the  summer  sunlight  struck 
it  through  the  open  door ;  and  Anne  was  beating,  with  her 
beautiful  hands,  at  his  unwilling  heart,  crying: 

"Let  me  in !  let  me  in  to  crowd  Nan  and  that  common 
woman  out!" 

Nan,  coming  down  with  a  roll  under  her  arm,  glanced 
at  him,  perturbed.  He  had,  she  judged,  been  seeing 
ghosts.  They  went  out  and  locked  the  door  behind  them 
(locking  in,  Nan  silently  hoped,  the  ghosts  also),  and 
hurried  back  along  the  road.  And  when  they  had  gone 
into  his  house  again,  Raven  told  her  to  run  upstairs  and 
put  her  things  in  the  west  chamber. 

"Scatter  'em  all  over  the  place,"  said  he.  "Amelia'll 
fight  for  that  room.  She'll  fight  tooth  and  nail.  I  sha'n't 
let  her  have  it,  not  even  if  you  give  it  up.  Understand?" 

"But  what  is  she  going  to  have?"  Nan  asked,  from  the 
stairs. 

"She's  going  to  sleep  down  here,  back  of  the  dining- 
room,"  said  Raven  perversely,  "in  the  room  they  made 
over  for  Old  Crow  when  they  were  going  to  get  him  to  give 
up  the  hut  and  come  down  here  to  die.  Amelia's  scared 
out  of  her  boots  in  the  country,  unless  she  hears  voices  on 
every  side  of  her.  I  know  Amelia.  Cut  along1  and  come 
down  again  and  help  me  set  the  scene." 

They  did  set  the  scene,  with  an  exhilaration  that  played 
back  and  forth  between  them  like  a  heady  atmosphere. 
Charlotte  was  bidden  to  make  the  bed  in  Old  Crow's  room 


OLD  CROW  173 

and  while  Raven  built  the  fire,  Nan  helped  Charlotte.  And 
when  the  pung  drove  up  from  the  station  at  the  moment 
Nan  had  foreseen,  she  and  Raven  were  sitting  before  the 
dining-room  fire,  apparently  deep  in  talk.  Whether  Char 
lotte  took  her  cue  from  them  they  did  not  know,  but  she 
was  too  busy  in  the  back  of  the  house  to  appear  at  once, 
and  Mrs.  Powell  and  Dick  came  in  unheralded,  turning 
first  to  the  dining-room.  There  sat  the  two,  absorbed. 
The  visitors  began,  on  an  according  note. 

"John!"  cried  Amelia,  and  "Nan!"  Dick  cried,  in  an 
identical  voice.  Raven  and  Nan  had  the  same  effect  of 
unison.  They  laughed,  it  was  so  exactly  what  they  had 
known  it  would  be,  and  Raven  came  forward,  put  his 
hands  on  his  sister's  shoulders,  and  gave  her  a  little  shake. 

"Now,  Mill}7,"  he  said,  "what  the  dickens  are  you  up 
here  for?" 

Nan,  having  alienists  on  her  mind,  and  finding  none,  was 
plumping  her  question  at  Dick: 

"Where's  Doctor  Brooke?" 

Dick  evaded  it  by  the  self-evident  statement  that  he 
hadn't  come,  and  ended  in  a  morass  of  frowning  confusion. 

Mrs.  Powell  turned  to  her  with  a  surprised  interroga 
tion,  a  doubtful  warmth.  It  tried  subtly  to  convey  an 
entire  acceptance  of  her  as  an  individual,  combined  with 
disapproval  of  finding  her  in  the  spot  she  had  no  excuse 
for  seeking.  And  while  they  were  exchanging  civil  com 
monplaces  veiling  unspoken  implications,  Raven  wras  look 
ing  at  his  sister  and  thinking,  in  a  whimsical  terror,  what 
a  very  large  grain  of  sand  she  was  likely  to  prove  in  the 
machinery  of  his  daily  life,  and  how  little  she  had  changed 
during  his  absence  from  America.  Here  she  was,  so  in 
domitable  in  every  particular  that  you  could  almost 
believe  she  was  going  to  be  as  lasting  as  the  processes 
that  went  to  her  equipment.  She  had,  you  learned  to 


174  OLD  CROW 

know,  tackled  life  as  a  servant  to  be  governed,  an  enemy 
to  be  downed.  If  it  had  antidotes,  she  would  lose  no 
moment  in  equipping  herself  with  them.  If  circumstance 
proved  unfriendly,  she  would  ignore  it  and  forge  ahead. 
She  was,  Raven  had  always  recognized,  the  feminine 
replica  of  his  father's  special  type.  As  to  her  looks,  she 
was  a  thin,  whip-like  woman,  who  gave  an  impression  of 
wiry  endurance  and  serviceable  resiliency.  You  would 
expect  her  to  be  hard  to  the  touch,  mental  or  moral,  and 
yet  she  could  double,  evade,  rebound.  Put  her  in  a  hole, 
and  she  soon  proved  to  you  that  its  obscurity  was  the  last 
place  where  she  proposed  to  stay.  She  looked  the  latest 
thing  evolved  by  the  art  of  man.  Her  clothes  were  the 
prevailing  fantastic  creation,  and  yet,  on  her,  they  were 
not  illogical.  They  were  the  plumage  of  an  eccentric 
bird  hatched  to  look  that  way.  Her  face,  in  its  sandy 
monotone  of  color,  fitted  the  art  of  her  wonderful  and  yet 
not  too  noticeable  hat,  and  her  gloves  and  veil  were  the 
last  word  of  style.  Amelia  had  begun  making  herself, 
Raven  used  to  think,  long  before  God  stopped  making 
her.  As  a  girl,  she  had  gone  after  strange  gods  of  cul 
ture  and  sestheticism,  forsaking  them,  when  they  toppled, 
for  newer  gods  still ;  but  always  she  was  undaunted,  always 
persisting  in  her  determined  pose  of  governing  the  situa 
tion  and  her  own  attitude  toward  it.  And  Amelia,  he 
knew,  could  hang  on  like  grim  death. 

"But  Nan !"  she  was  exclaiming,  "who'd  have  expected 
to  find  you  here?" 

"Well,"  said  Nan,  in  the  shock  of  realizing  she  hadn't 
quite  remembered  what  Amelia  was  like,  and  ranging  her 
self  to  fight  on  Rookie's  side,  "who'd  have  expected  you, 
Mrs.  Powell?" 

Dick  stood  frowning  at  them  impartially  and  twisting 
his  hat  in  his  hands  like  a  sulky  boy. 


OLD  CROW  175 

"Have  you  opened  jour  house?"  Amelia  persisted. 
"You're  not  staying " 

"She's  staying  here,"  said  Raven.  "Nan's  taken 
pity  on  me  and  come  up  for  a  visit.  Oh,  Charlotte ! 
here  you  are.  Show  Mrs.  Powell  to  her  room,  will 
you?" 

Charlotte  appearing,  white-aproned,  in  the  doorway, 
looking  like  the  beneficent  goddess  of  home,  Mrs.  Powell 
greeted  her  urbanely  and  asked  appropriate  questions. 
Was  she  well,  as  well  as  she  looked?  And  how  was  her 
husband?  Always  well,  she  remembered.  Yes,  she  would 
go  to  her  room,  please.  But  she'd  go  up  by  herself.  She 
knew  the  way.  She  should  think  so,  indeed !  And  her 
reminiscent  laugh  endowed  them  with  the  picture  of  the 
little  girl  she  had  been,  born  and  brought  up  in  this  very 
house. 

"Oh,  but  it  isn't  up,"  said  Raven  cheerfully.  "It's  the 
west  bedroom." 

"Not "  she  began,  and  he  nodded,  taking  her  coat 

from  the  chair. 

"Yes,  Old  Crow's  room.  What  was  going  to  be  his  if 
he  hadn't  given  'em  the  slip.  I  put  Nan  into  the  west 
chamber.  You'll  be  awfully  comfortable  in  that  room, 
Milly.  I'll  take  in  your  bag." 

Amelia,  immediately  circumspect  when  she  did  not  see 
her  way,  did  follow  him,  but  she  was  in  as  great  a  state 
of  suppressed  dudgeon  as  a  civilized  lady,  living  by  the 
latest  rules,  allows  herself  to  be.  Dick  and  Nan,  left  alone 
in  the  dining-room,  turned  upon  each  other  like  two  young 
furies. 

"You  came  up  here,"  said  Dick,  in  a  tone  of  ill- 
suppressed  ire,  "to  tell  him  we  were  coming.  I  call  it  a 
mean  trick." 

"What  about  you?"  inquired  Nan.     "You'd  better  not 


176  OLD  CROW 

talk  about  tricks.  Can  you  think  of  a  meaner  one  than 
giving  him  away  to  the  entire  middle  west?'* 

"The  middle  west !"  echoed  Dick  bitterly.  "I  told  my 
mother."  • 

"Yes,  you  told  your  mother.  And  she  comes  up  here 
with  her  alienists." 

"You'll  notice,"  said  Dick  icily,  "the  alienist  didn't 
come." 

"I  assume,"  said  Nan,  "he's  expected  on  the  next  train. 
Or  he's  going  to  pounce  some  time  when  Rookie  isn't  pre 
pared." 

"You  little  beast!"  said  Dick.  "You  don't  deserve  it, 
but  I'll  inform  you  he  isn't  coming  at  all.  I  choked  him 
off.  I  told  him  mother's  the  one  that's  dotty  or  she 
wouldn't  have  called  him  in,  and  Uncle  Jack  wasn't  a 
patient  and  never'd  consent  if  he  knew.  And  he  was  an 
awfully  decent  fellow  and  said  nothing  would  induce  him 
to  come." 

"You  did,  did  you?"  said  Nan  ungratefully.  "Well, 
you'd  better.  You've  made  enough  mischief  for  one  not 
very  inventive  young  person,  don't  you  think?  And 
wouldn't  it  seem  to  you  you'd  better  use  your  influence 
with  your  mother  to-morrow  morning  and  get  out  of  here?" 

"Out  of  here?"  repeated  Dick.  "Out  of  my  uncle's 
house.  You  act "  here  he  paused. 

"Yes,"  said  Nan,  "I  do  act  precisely  that  way.  I  act 
as  if  I  had  more  right  here  than  you.  And  I  have.  For  I 
adore  Rookie.  And  that  gives  me  a  right  to  stay  with 
him  and  fight  for  him,  and  die  for  him,  if  I  want  to.  And 
you  don't  care  a  sixpence,  or  you  wouldn't  have  brought 
this  on  him." 

Dick,  the  man,  cooled  sooner  than  she.  He  paled,  and 
stood  looking  at  her.  Then  he  spoke  in  a  voice  dulled  by 
wonder: 


OLD  CROW  17T 

"I  believe  you  do  adore  him." 

"Of  course  I  do,"  cried  Nan,  all  her  anger  of  impatience 
thrilling  in  her  voice.  "I  love  him  more  than  anything 
in  this  world  or  the  next  and  I  always  did  and  I  always 
shall." 

This  Raven,  coming  back  through  the  hall,  heard. 

"Good  Lord !"  he  said  to  himself.  "Good  Lord !" 

So  these  two,  with  all  the  forces  of  probability  and 
beckoning  fortune  pushing  them  together,  could  not  ap 
proach  even  within  hailing  distance.  It  was  the  hideous 
irony  of  a  world  bent  on  disorder.  He  walked  in  on 
them  with  a  consciously  grave  aspect  of  recalling  them 
to  their  more  reasonable  selves. 

"What  are  you  two  scrapping  for?"  he  inquired,  and 
Nan  looked  at  him  humbly.  She  hated  to  have  him  both 
ered  by  inconsiderable  persons  like  herself  and  Dick. 
"Don't  you  know  you've  got  the  universe  in  your  fists  for 
the  last  time  you'll  ever  have  it?  You're  young " 

There  he  stopped  awkwardly  in  the  enumeration  of 
their  presumable  blessedness.  It  was  Nan's  face  that 
stopped  him.  It  had  paled  out  into  a  gravity  surprising 
to  him:  a  weariness  he  had  often  expected  to  see  on  it 
after  her  work  abroad,  but  had  not  yet  found  there. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  that  matched  her  tired  face, 
"we're  young  enough,  if  that's  all." 

The  talk  displeased  her.  Nan  never  liked  people  to  be 
dull  and  smudgy  with  disorderly  moods.  She  kept  a  firm 
hand  on  her  own  emotions  and  perhaps  she  could  not 
remember  a  time  when  they  had  got  away  from  her  under 
other  eyes.  Aunt  Anne  was  partly  responsible  for  that, 
and  partly  the  proud  shyness  of  her  type. 

"No,  Rookie,"  she  said,  "we  won't  fight.  Not  here, 
anyway.  Not  in  your  house." 

She  held  out  a  careless  hand  to  Dick,  who  looked  at  it 


178  OLD  CROW 

an  instant  and  then  turned  sulkily  away.  "Young  cub !" 
Raven  thought.  He  should  have  kissed  it,  even  gone  on 
his  knees  to  do  it,  and  placated  her  with  a  laughing  ex 
travagance.  He  recalled  the  words  he  had  caught  from 
her  lips  when  he  was  coming  in  and  flushed  to  his  fore 
head  over  the  ringing  warmth  of  them.  He  bent  to  the 
fine  hand  about  relaxing  to  withdrawal,  after  Dick's  flout 
ing,  drew  it  to  his  own  lips  and  kissed  it :  not  as  he  would 
have  had  Dick  do  it  but  yet  with  all  his  heart.  As  he 
lifted  his  head  he  smiled  into  her  eyes,  and  their  look 
smote  him.  It  wras  as  if  he  had  somehow  hurt  her. 

"O  Rookie !"  she  said,  under  her  breath. 

And  at  the  instant,  while  they  stood  awkwardly  in  the 
rebound  from  emotions  not  recognized,  Amelia  came  out 
from  her  bedroom,  perfected  as  to  hair  and  raiment,  but 
obviously  on  edge  and  cheerfully  determined  on  not  show 
ing  it.  Evidently  she  liked  Old  Crow's  room  no  more 
than  she  might  have  guessed. 

"O  Lord!"  said  Raven  ruefully  to  his  inner  self, 
"we're  going  to  have  a  cheerful  house-party,  now  ain't 
we?" 


XVII 

The  afternoon  went  off  moderately  well.  Nan  forgot 
the  late  unpleasantness  between  her  and  Dick  and  assumed 
they  were  on  their  usual  terms,  a  fashion  of  making  up 
more  exasperating  to  him  than  the  quarrel  itself.  He 
was  too  often,  he  suspected,  out  of  the  picture  of  her 
immediate  mind.  But  it  was  most  unproductive  to  sulk. 
When  she  forgot  and  he  reproached  her  for  it,  she  forgot 
that  also ;  and  now  when  she  suggested  a  walk  he  got  his 
cap  with  a  degree  of  cheerfulness  and  they  went  out, 
leaving  Raven  and  his  sister  together  by  the  fire,  for  what 
proved  to  be  one  of  the  rich  afternoons  of  Raven's  life. 
Amelia  sat  down  at  the  hearth  and  put  her  perfectly  shod 
feet  to  the  blaze. 

"Now,  John,"  she  said  crisply,  while  he  was  fidgeting 
about,  wondering  whether  he  dared  offer  her  a  book  and 
take  himself  out  of  doors,  "sit  down  and  tell  me  all 
about  it." 

Raven  went  to  the  fire,  but  stood  commanding  it  and 
her.  He  might,  he  thought,  as  well  meet  the  issue  at 
once. 

"What?"  he  asked.  "What  do  you  want  to  know?" 

"You  mustn't  think  I  can't  sympathize,"  she  informed 
him,  in  the  clear  tone  he  recognized  as  the  appropriate 
one  for  an  advanced  woman  who  sees  a  task  before  her — 
"damned  meddlers,"  he  was  accustomed  to  call  them  in  his 
sessions  of  silent  thought — "you  mustn't  think  I'm  not 

179 


180  OLD  CROW 

prepared.  I've  heard  lectures  on  it,  and  since  Dick  sent 
me  your  letter  I've  read  more  or  less." 

"My  letter !"  groaned  Raven.  "If  ever  a  chap  was  pun 
ished  for  a  minute's  drunkenness " 

"Drunkenness?"  interrupted  Amelia  incisively. 

"Oh,  drunkenness  of  feeling — irresponsibility — don't 
you  know?  Didn't  you  ever  hear  of  a  chap's  killing  him 
self  in  a  minute  of  acute  discontent  because  he  couldn't 
stand  the  blooming  show  an  instant  longer?  Well,  I  didn't 
kill  myself.  I  did  something  worse.  I  wrote  a  letter,  and, 
by  an  evil  chance,  it  was  mailed,  and  Dick,  like  a  fool, 
sent  it  on  to  you." 

"Dick  did  absolutely  right,"  said  Dick's  mother  con 
clusively.  "We  won't  discuss  that.  We'll  go  into  the 
thing  itself." 

"What  the  deuce  is  the  thing?"  Raven  inquired.  "The 
letter,  or  my  bursting  into  tears,  like  a  high-strung 
maiden  lady,  and  calling  Dick  in  to  be  cried  over?" 

"Don't  evade  it,"  she  charged  him,  with  unabated 
gravity.  "We  mustn't,  either  of  us.  You  know  what  I 
mean — cafard" 

"Cafard!"  Then  he  remembered  Dick  also  had  caught 
up  the  word,  like  a  missile,  and  pelted  him  with  it.  He 
gulped.  Ordinary  speech  wasn't  going  to  be  adequate. 
She  belonged  to  this  infernal  age  that  lived  by  phrases. 
If  he  told  her  he  was  still  of  the  opinion  that  the  world 
was  a  disordered  place  of  torment  you  could  only  exist 
in  by  ignoring  its  real  complexion,  she  would  merely 
consign  him  to  a  cell  more  scientifically  padded,  and  stand 
gazing  at  him  through  the  bars,  in  solemn  sympathy.  "So 
I've  gone  cafard,"  he  said  slowly,  looking  down  at  the  fire 
and  wondering  how  to  answer  a  fool  according  to  her 
folly.  Or  was  she  incredibly  right  ?  Had  he  some  creep 
ing  sickness  of  the  brain,  the  very  nature  of  which  implied 


OLD  CROW  181 

his  own  insensitivcness  to  it?  "Or  do  you  say  'got' 
cafard?  And  what's  your  personal  impression  of  cafard, 
anyway  ?" 

She  had  her  answer  ready.  From  the  little  bag  in  her 
lap  she  took  out  a  small  sheaf  of  folded  papers,  memoran 
dum  slips,  they  seemed  to  be,  and  whirled  them  over  in 
capable  fingers. 

"It  ought  to  be  here,"  she  said  absorbedly.  "Yes,  here 
it  is.  No,  it  isn't  either.  It  must  be  among  my  club 
notes.  What  Galsworthy  says  about  it,  you  know.  He 
makes  it  so  clear.  Just  what  they  mean  by  it,  the  French, 
how  you  simply  go  to  pieces.  You  know,  John.  Of 
course  you  know." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven  drily,  "I  heard  of  it  remotely  among 
the  boys." 

"No  wonder  it  happened  to  you.  Really,  you  know, 
John,  you  ought  not  to  have  gone  over  there  at  all,  not 
at  your  age.  It  was  fine  of  you.  I'm  not  denying  that. 
But  there  were  lots  of  things  you  could  have  done  at 
home:  dollar  a  year  men  and  all  that.  However,  we 
must  take  it  as  we  find  it.  You've  got  cafard,  and  we 
must  make  sure  you  have  the  best  thing  done  for  you.  Do 
you  see?" 

"And  what,"  inquired  Raven,  curiously,  "is  the  best 
thing?" 

"My  idea,"  she  said,  pelting  on  in  her  habitual  manner 
of  manipulation  without  much  regard  to  the  material  she 
was  working  on,  "would  be  for  you  to  see  an  alienist." 

"I  thought,"  he  was  beginning  mildly,  and  paused,  with 
a  sense  of  danger.  He  must,  he  saw,  forego  the  fun  of 
chaffing  her  from  his  awareness  that  the  professional 
gentleman  was  to  have  been  sprung  on  him  to-day,  and 
that  he  knew  equally  the  infliction  could  only  be  deferred. 
But  how,  she  would  have  questioned,  did  he  get  his  news? 


182  OLD  CROW 

Not,  he  would  have  to  convince  her,  through  Nan.  He 
amended  his  attack.  "Why  didn't  you  scare  one  up  and 
bring  him  along?" 

She  frowned.     Amelia  was  always  restive  under  raillery. 

"We  needn't,"  she  said,  "go  into  that.  I  did  hope  to 
arrange  it,  but  Dick  upset  things  frightfully.  He  has 
behaved  badly,  very  badly  indeed.  I  hope  now  to  per 
suade  you  to  call  in  Doctor  Brooke  yourself.  I  should 
suppose  he'd  recommend  your  going  into  a  sanitarium. 
However,  we  can't  judge  till  we  see  what  he  says.  Only, 
John" — and  here  she  looked  at  him  with  some  appearance 
of  anxiety,  as  not  knowing  how  he  would  take  it — "you 
must  give  yourself  into  our  hands." 

"Whose  hands?"  asked  Raven.     "Yours?     Dick's?" 

"Oh,  dear,  no,  not  Dick's."  Again  she  mentally 
champed  her  bit.  Evidently  Dick  had  exhausted  her  for 
bearance  on  the  way  up.  "He's  behaved  like  a In 
vention  failed  her.  "I  do  wish,"  she  ended  plaintively, 
"the  modern  young  man  and  woman  had  a  vestige  of 
respect  left — only  a  vestige — for  their  elders.  They're 
queerness  itself.  Now  Nan !  there's  Nan.  What's  she 
posting  off  up  here  for  and  settling  herself  in  your  house" 
—in  the  west  chamber,  Raven's  inner  mind  ironically  sup 
plied — "and  acting  as  if  you  couldn't  pry  her  out?" 

"You  can't,"  said  Raven.  "Nan's  here  and  I'm  going 
to  keep  her,  all  winter,  if  she  doesn't  get  bored." 

Amelia  gave  a  little  staccato  shriek. 

"All  winter?     I  can't  stay  here  all  winter." 

"Dear  old  Milly,  no,"  said  Raven,  with  the  utmost 
gentleness.  "I  wouldn't  have  you  for  the  world.  It's  Nan 
that's  going  to  stay." 

"Why,"  said  Amelia,  "it  isn't  decent.  You're  not  an 
old  man,  John.  Sometimes  you  don't  even  look  middle- 
aged." 


OLD  CROW  183 

"You  said  I  was,"  he  reminded  her.  "You  said  I  was  sc 
old  I  went  and  got  cafard." 

"Besides,"  said  Amelia,  clutching  at  her  vanishing 
argument,  "age  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  older  you 
are  the  more  ridiculous  they  get  over  you,  these  romantic 
girls.  And  you'd  cut  in  and  take  her  away  from  Dick, 
right  under  his  nose." 

Raven  suddenly  tired  of  it. 

"Amelia,"  he  said,  "don't  be  a  fool.  And  don't  say 
that  sort  of  odious  thing  about  Nan.  I  won't  have  it. 
Nan's  a  child." 

"Oh,  no,"  said  Amelia,  shaking  her  waved  head  with  an 
air  of  doom.  "Nan's  no  child.  Don't  make  any  mistake 
about  that.  She's  no  child." 

At  this,  Raven  found  he  was  so  unreasonably  tired  of 
her  that  he  had  to  call  himself  to  order  and  wonder  if  he 
really,  could  be  disgusted  with  Amelia,  old  Milly  who  was 
such  a  sophisticated  fool  and  yet  meant  so  well  by  every 
body  that  you  had  to  keep  reproving  yourself  when  you 
were  tempted  to  consign  her — elsewhere. 

"Milly,"  he  said,  in  the  tone  he  always  had  toward 
her  at  her  worst,  a  tone  of  recalling  her,  bidding  her 
remember  she  was  a  nice  ordinary  woman,  not  an  arbiter 
of  social  destinies,  "Milly,  sometimes  you're  an  awful 
idiot.  Don't  you  know  you  are?  Don't  you  see  it  won't 
do  to  keep  hitting  me  on  the  raw?  I  sha'n't  stand  it,  you 
know.  I  shall  have  to  take  Nan  under  my  arm  and  get 
out  and  leave  you  the  house  to  yourself.  It's  all  very 
well  for  you  to  call  down  alienists  on  me,  and  get  me  to 
put  myself  under  restraint,  but  Nan's  rather  sacred  to 
me.  You  can't  meddle  with  Nan,  and  if  you  weren't  so 
wrapped  up  in  your  own  conceit,  you'd  see  you  couldn't." 

Amelia  seemed  to  be  reflecting  on  something  which 
resulted  in  shocking  her  into  a  further  uneasiness. 


184  OLD  CROW 

"And  the  thing  she  said !  I  heard  it  with  my  own  ears. 
She  adored  you !  That's  what  she  said,  adored  you.  To 
Dick,  too,  of  all  people,  Dick  she's  virtually  engaged  to." 

Raven  remembered  a  scene  in  a  play  where  a  drunken 
man  lifts  a  chair  and  then,  aware  of  his  own  possibilities, 
gently  sets  it  down  again.  He  wanted  to  lift  a  chair. 
Only  he  wanted  to  complete  the  act  and  smash  it. 

"Milly,"  he  said  gently,  "I  tell  you  Nan  is  a  child. 
Doesn't  that  show  she's  a  child — the  pretty  extravagance 
of  it !  Why,  I'm  'old  Rookie'  to  Nan.  What  else  do  you 
think  I  could  possibly  be?" 

"Heaven  knows,"  said  Amelia,  tightening  her  lips.  "I 
can't  imagine  what  her  Aunt  Anne  would  have  said.  John, 
wasn't  it  wonderful  her  leaving  you  practically  all  her 
money?  And  just  what  might  have  been  expected.  She 
was  bound  up  in  you." 

"O  Lord !"  said  Raven. 

But  Amelia,  once  started,  knew  no  bounds. 

"And  that's  what  I  say,  John.  If  you  take  hold  of 
yourself  now  and  get  into  shape  again,  you've  a  great 
many  years  before  you,  and  Anne's  money  with  yours — 
well,  I  don't  see  why  you  shouldn't  look  forward  to  a  great 
deal." 

Raven  went  over  to  the  window  and  sat  down  there 
staring  at  the  black  bare  branches  and  the  clear  sky.  It 
seemed  to  him  unspeakably  desolate  and  even,  in  its  in 
difference  to  his  own  mood,  cruel.  So  was  Amelia,  he 
thought.  In  spite  of  her  platitudes  about  enjoying  a 
great  deal,  she  had  him  dead  and  buried.  He  became 
absurdly  conscious  that  he  was  afraid,  but  of  one  thing 
only :  to  hear  her  voice  again.  Upon  that,  thinking  how 
it  would  actually  sound,  he  turned  about  and  ignomini- 
ously  left  the  room.  And  since  there  was  no  spot  in  the 
house  where  she  might  not  follow  him  he  took  his  hat  and 


OLD  CROW  185 

jacket  from  the  kitchen  and  went  out  through  the  shed. 
Charlotte  was  washing  dishes  at  the  sink,  but  she  did  not, 
according  to  her  custom,  look  up  to  pass  the  time  of 
day.  A  cloud  rested  even  on  her  brown  hair  and  splendid 
shoulders.  Amelia  had  brought  the  cloud.  She'd  have 
to  get  out,  even  if  he  had  to  tell  her  so. 

With  no  intention,  but  an  involuntary  desire  to  be 
where  Amelia  would  not  find  him  (and  also,  it  was  possi 
ble,  where  that  other  quietest  of  women  could  be  found) 
he  went  down  the  road  to  the  maples,  and  then  plunged 
into  the  woods  and  up  the  hill.  He  had  first  gone  along 
the  road  to  mislead  Amelia,  if  she  chanced  to  be  looking 
out.  He  couldn't  have  her  following,  and  she  was  equal 
to  it,  pumps  and  all.  Halfway  up  the  hill,  making  his 
way  through  undergrowth  where  the  snow  packed  heavily, 
he  turned  off  at  his  left  and  so  got  into  the  wood  road. 
And  then,  his  breath  coming  quick  from  haste  and  the 
vexation  of  the  clogged  way,  he  did  not  slacken  to  cool 
off  in  the  relief  of  easier  going,  but,  breathless  as  he  was, 
began  to  run,  and  got  more  breathless  still.  Tira  was 
up  there  in  the  hut.  He  was  sure  of  it.  And  for  those 
first  hurried  minutes  he  forgot  her  presence  there  meant 
only  added  misery,  but  dwelt  upon  his  own  need  of  such 
a  spirit  as  hers;  the  strength,  the  poise,  the  ready  cool 
ness. 

At  the  door  he  felt  rebuffed,  it  looked  so  inhospitable, 
so  tight  against  him.  He  tapped  and  waited.  No  one 
came.  Then  he  tried  it  and  found  it  locked  and  the 
revulsion  was  bitter.  He  was  about  turning  away  when 
it  came  to  him  that  at  least  he  might  go  in.  The  key 
would  be  under  the  stone.  He  put  his  hand  into  the 
hollow  and  found  it  there,  and  only  when  he  was  setting 
it  in  the  lock  realized  that  this  meant  a  deeper  loneliness. 
It  would  be  easier  to  think  she  was  there,  the  key  turned 


186  OLD  CROW 

against  him,  but  still  in  his  house,  than  to  find  the  house 
itself  void  of  her  presence.  He  shook  himself,  in  anger 
at  the  incomprehensible  way  the  whole  thing  was  moving 
him.  Why  should  it  move  him?  Then,  finding  it  cold, 
the  deserted  room,  he  made  himself  busy  and  laid  the  fire 
and  set  the  two  chairs  hospitably  by  the  hearth.  He  did 
not  light  the  fire.  It  must  be  ready  for  her  if  she  came. 
After  it  was  in  order  (her  house,  it  seemed  to  him  now, 
with  a  fatalism  of  belief  he  accepted  and  did  not  dwell 
upon)  he  sat  down  by  the  cold  hearth  and  tried  to  think. 
But  never  of  himself.  He  thought  of  her:  beautiful,  lus 
trous,  caged  bird  with  the  door  of  her  prison  open,  and 
who  yet  would  not  go.  His  mind  went  back  to  Milly, 
waiting  there  at  home  to  apply  scientific  remedies  to  his 
diseased  spirit,  and  he  laughed  a  little,  Milly  seemed  of 
such  small  consequence.  But  the  thought  of  the  misery 
of  mind  that  had  brought  him  here  gave  him  a  new  sense 
of  the  cruelty  of  the  world.  For  it  had  been  the  sad 
state  of  the  whole  world  he  had  fled  away  from  and  here, 
as  if  all  misery  had  converged  to  a  point,  he  had  taken 
a  straight  path  to  the  direst  tragedy  of  all :  a  mother  try 
ing  against  hope  to  save  her  child,  the  most  beautiful  of 
women  pursued  by  sex  cruelty,  the  gentlest  threatened  by 
brute  force.  How  could  he  save  her?  He  could  not,  for 
she  would  not  be  saved.  He  sat  there  until  the  dark  in 
the  corners  crept  toward  him  like  fates,  their  mantles 
held  up  in  shadowy  hands,  to  smother  him,  and  then  sud 
denly  remembering  Nan  and  hospitable  duties  down  below, 
he  got  up,  chilled,  went  out,  and  locked  the  hut  behind  him. 
The  house  he  found  was  a  blaze  of  windows.  Charlotte 
had  lighted  lamps  and  candles  all  over  it.  He  was  half 
amused  by  that,  it  gave  such  an  air  of  fictitious  gayety. 
He  did  not  know  Nan  had  whispered  her  to  make  it  bright 
because  he  would  see  it,  coming  up  the  road. 


OLD  CROW  187 

The  three  were  in  the  library  by  the  fire.  Amelia  had 
dressed  for  supper  in  chiffon  absurdly  thin  and  curtailed, 
neck  and  hem,  so  that  Dick  had,  without  being  told, 
brought  her  fur  coat  and  put  it  about  her  shoulders. 
That  was  just  like  her,  Raven  thought,  as  he  went  in  upon 
them,  to  go  by  the  clock  and,  because  winter  evenings 
necessitated  evening  dress,  ignore  the  creeping  cold  of  a 
country  house.  Nan  wore  her  gown  of  the  morning,  and 
her  stout  shoes.  Indeed  she  had  to,  Raven  reminded  him 
self,  when  he  was  about  to  commend  her  for  good  taste. 
She  had  brought  only  her  little  bag.  Nan  was  now  sweet 
reasonableness  itself.  No  sleepiest  kitten,  claws  in-drawn, 
could  have  been  softer.  Amelia  was  baiting  her,  asking 
her,  with  a  reproving  implication  that  she  ought  not  to 
have  been  in  a  position  to  know,  about  the  life  over  seas, 
and  Nan  was  answering  by  the  card,  compliantly,  sin 
cerely. 

She  had  determined,  Raven  could  see,  that  there  should 
be  no  more  ructions  in  his  house.  When  he  came  in, 
they  looked  up  at  him,  frankly  pleased,  and  Amelia  as 
patently  relieved. 

"I'm  so  glad  you've  come  back,"  she  said,  getting  up 
so  that  Dick  could  set  another  chair,  and  Raven  join 
them  in  the  conventional  family  circle.  "I've  been  trying 
to  send  Dick  out  after  you,  but  he  wouldn't  go.  John, 
you  mustn't  get  into  the  habit  of  wandering  off  alone  like 
that.  You  really  mustn't." 

Raven  grimaced  as  he  took  the  properly  adjusted  chair, 
and  wondered  whether  he'd  got  again  to  invite  Milly  to 
shut  up.  But  Dick  did  it,  in  an  honest  despair  that 
seemed  entirely  adequate. 

"Ain't  mother  the  limit?"  he  remarked,  to  no  one  but 
perhaps  his  own  wondering  mind. 

Raven    gave    a    little    bark    of    laughter,    and    Amelia 


188  OLD  CROW 

betrayed  no  sign  of  having  heard.  But  Raven  caught  the 
grateful  tribute  of  Nan's  tone. 

"My  hanky,"  she  said,  "Dickie,  dear." 

He  saw  it  dropped,  saw  Dick  dart  for  it,  and  Nan, 
accepting  it,  give  his  fingers  a  little  squeeze.  Evidently 
Dick,  who  flushed  red,  was  being  paid  for  having  briefly 
illuminated  mother.  Supper  was  got  through  success 
fully,  Raven  and  Dick  doing  active  service.  Raven 
talked  about  thinning  out  the  lower  woods  and  Dick 
played  up  beautifully,  taking  it  with  the  greatest  atten 
tion  and  answering  at  length.  Mother  was  to  be  shunted 
imperceptibly  from  cafard.  And  when  they  had  finished 
and  returned  again  to  the  library  fire,  Nan,  after  perhaps 
half  an  hour  of  desultory  talk,  yawned  rudely  and  asked 
if  she  might  go  to  her  bed.  Raven  suspected  her.  He 
noted  how  she  half  closed  the  library  door  behind  her ;  so 
he  took  the  chair  she  had  lately  left,  commanding  the 
crack  of  it.  In  about  the  time  he  expected,  he  heard  her 
in  the  hall.  She  had  come  down  the  back  stairs,  he  judged, 
and  was  now  putting  on  her  hat  and  coat,  with  scarcely  a 
rustle,  the  sly  one! 

"Draught  from  this  door?"  he  suggested,  got  up  and 
closed  it. 

At  least  Dick  shouldn't  know  she  was  going.  If  any 
body  stole  behind  her  in  the  friendly  "outdoors"  it  should 
be  he,  to  guard  her  from  her  own  foolhardiness.  These 
roads  were  paths  of  peace,  but  Nan  was  equal  to  adven 
ture  more  extended.  She  might  have  snatched  snowshoes, 
in  her  stealthy  preparation,  to  go  off  wood  wandering. 
She  might  brave  the  darkness  where,  to  country  minds, 
lurked  the  recurring  legend  of  the  "lucivee."  There  was 
no  actual  danger,  but  Pan  might  be  wandering. 

"These  old  windows  are  draughty,  too,"  said  Raven. 
He  paused  at  one  of  them,  fumbling  with  the  catch. 


OLD  CROW  189 

Really  he  was  watching  the  path.  There  she  was,  at  the 
left,  going  toward  her  own  house.  He  pulled  down  the 
shade  and  lounged  back  to  his  seat  by  the  fire. 

"You  probably  feel  the  cold,"  said  Milly  drowsily. 
The  fur  coat  and  blazing  logs  were  beg  nning  to  do  their 
blessed  work.  "Your  vitality  is  low." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven  piously.  He  would  have  sworn  to 
anything.  "Just  so."  He  went  on  talking  to  Dick,  and 
Dick  caught  the  ball  neatly,  so  that  presently  they  could 
glance  at  each  other  in  a  community  of  understanding. 
"She's  off!"  said  Raven's  face,  and  Dick's  returned, 
"Right  you  are !"  while  he  droned  on  about  "popple,"  the 
local  word  for  poplar,  and  the  right  month  for  peeling 
and  whether  it  really  paid  to  cut  it  if  you  had  to  hire. 
Raven  loved  Dick  at  times  like  these,  when  he  was  neither 
sulky  over  Nan's  aloofness  nor  didactic  about  democracy 
and  free  verse.  Amelia  choked  and  came  awake. 

"Did  I,"  she  ventured,  fearing  a  too  frank  reply,  "did 
I — make  a  noise?" 

"No,  dear,"  said  Raven  mellifluously. 

If  Milly  had  been  cleverer  she  would  have  remembered 
that  when  he  was  deceiving  her  he  spoke,  "as  if  butter 
wouldn't  melt,"  as  if  his  vocal  arrangements  dropped  oil 
and  balm. 

"Dick  and  I  are  talking  out  this  lumber  question. 
Don't  you  bother.  You  don't  know  anything  about 
popple." 

Milly,  reassured,  dropped  her  cheek,  with  a  little  breath, 
and  closed  her  eyes.  "Gone?"  Dick  telegraphed  Raven, 
who  nodded  "Gone!"  took  a  step  to  the  door,  opened 
it,  and  was  himself  away.  He  snatched,  haphazard,  at  a 
hat  and  coat  on  the  great  chest  in  the  hall.  Dick 
had  a  way  of  throwing  things  down  and  leaving  them 
where  they  fell.  Yes,  they  were  Dick's,  and  Raven  hastily 


190  OLD  CROW 

shoved  himself  into  them,  judging  it  was  better,  if  Dick 
decided  to  go  roaming,  to  keep  him  looking  for  them. 
Then  he  went  out  and  down  the  path  and  along  the  road 
where  Nan  had  gone.  He  came  to  her  house  and  stopped, 
interrogating  it.  There  was  no  light.  Still  she  might 
be  in  the  back  part,  hunting  about  for  something  she 
perversely  couldn't  wait  for  over  night.  He  went  up 
the  path  and  tried  the  front  door.  It  was  fastened 
and  he  called  to  her.  But  there  was  no  Nan,  and  he 
went  back  to  the  road  and  walked  up  and  down,  waiting. 
If  she  wanted  a  run  alone  in  the  dark,  she  must  have  it. 
After  he  had  been  pacing  for  what  seemed  to  him  a  long 
time,  he  heard  voices  and  the  crunch  of  snow.  One  voice 
was  hers,  and  he  went  on  to  meet  it.  The  other,  a 
man's,  short-syllabled,  replied  at  intervals.  Nan  seemed 
to  be  holding  forth.  They  were  coming  on  briskly,  Nan 
and  a  tall  figure  at  the  other  side  of  the  road.  She 
had  seen  Raven  and  called,  clearly,  though  not  with  any 
implication  of  relief: 

"That  you,  Rookie?" 

He  came  up  to  them  and  saw,  with  a  surprise  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  event,  in  this  neighborhood  where 
anybody  might  join  anybody  else  in  familiar  intercourse, 
that  it  was  Tenney.  They  stopped,  Tenney  a  step  behind 
her.  It  looked  as  if  he  understood  he  had  fulfilled  his 
civility  to  her  and  could  be  dismissed. 

"I've  been  calling  on  Mrs.  Tenney,"  said  Nan,  "and  I 
asked  Mr.  Tenney  to  walk  home  with  me.  Thank  you, 
Mr.  Tenney.  Good  night.  Think  it  over,  won't  you?" 

Tenney  turned,  without  a  word,  and  went  back  along 
the  road,  with  his  habitual  look,  Raven  had  time  to  note, 
in  the  one  glance  he  cast  after  him,  of  being  blown  by  a 
hurrying  wind.  Raven  faced  about  with  Nan  and  asked 
at  once,  in  the  excess  of  his  curiosity : 


OLD  CROW  191 

"Now  what  are  you  up  to,  calling  on  the  Tenney  s  ?" 

Nan  answered  seriously.  There  was  trouble  in  her 
voice. 

"Well,  I  got  thinking  about  them  so  I  knew  I  shouldn't 
go  to  sleep,  and  I  just  went  up  by,  without  any  real  plan, 
you  know.  The  woman  had  such  an  effect  on  me.  I 
couldn't  keep  away  from  her." 

Raven  was  struck  with  the  inevitableness  of  this.  Yes, 
she  had  that  effect.  You  couldn't  keep  away  from  her. 

"I'd  no  idea  of  going  in,"  said  Nan.  "And  I  did  want 
a  run.  Isn't  the  air  heady?  But  just  as  I  got  to  the 
house,  she  opened  the  door.  She  was  coming  out,  I  sup 
pose.  She  had  the  baby.  The  baby  was  all  wrapped  up. 
She  wasn't,  though.  She  had  just  an  apron  on  her  head. 
And  when  the  door  opened,  I  could  hear  him  yelling  inside. 
I  don't  know  whether  he  was  driving  her  out  or  whether 
she'd  started  to  run  for  it." 

"Well?"  prompted  Raven  harshly.  Why  should  she 
be  so  slow  about  it?  "What  then?" 

"I  went  up  the  path,"  said  Nan,  in  a  half  absent  way, 
as  if  what  she  was  telling  seemed  far  less  important  than 
the  perplexing  issues  it  had  bred  in  her.  "I  said  good 
evening  to  her.  I  went  by  her:  I  think  I  did.  I  must 
have  got  into  the  kitchen  first.  And  there  he  was.  He's 
a  striking  fellow,  isn't  he,  Rookie?  Like  a  prophet  out 
on  the  loose,  foaming  at  the  mouth  and  foretelling  to  beat 
the  band.  He'd  got  something  in  his  hands.  It  was  little 
and  white;  it  might  have  been  the  baby's  cap.  He  was 
tearing  it  to  rags.  You  ought  to  have  seen  him  at  it." 

"You  shouldn't  have  gone  in,"  said  Raven  angrily. 
"The  fellow's  dotty.  Don't  you  know  he  is?  Did  he 
speak  to  you?" 

Nan  gave  a  little  laugh.  Suddenly  the  incongruity  of 
it  came  over  her. 


192  OLD  CROW 

"No,"  she  said,  "I  spoke  to  him.  Suddenly  I  seemed 
to  see  how  Charlotte  would  have  spoken — that  mother 
way,  you  know,  men  can't  stand  up  against.  I  said — I 
think  I  said — 'Mr.  Tenney,  what  under  the  sun  are  you 
carrying  on  like  this  for?  I  should  think  you  were  in 
liquor.'  " 

Raven,  wondering  if  he  should  cry  at  the  relief  of  hav 
ing  her  safe  out  of  the  ogre's  den,  had  to  laugh  with 
her. 

"It  caught  him,"  said  Nan,  beginning  to  enjoy  it,  "as 
grandsir  used  to  say,  between  wind  and  water.  He  looked 
down  at  the  thing  in  his  hands — the  rags,  you  know — and 
dropped  them  into  the  wood-box.  You  see  that  was  the 
real  wiliness  of  the  serpent,  my  telling  him  he  was  in 
drink.  He's  full  of  spiritual  pride,  all  eat  up  with  it. 
Then  I  played  Charlotte  some  more.  I  told  Mrs.  Tenney 
to  come  in,  and  remarked  that  she'd  get  her  death  o'  cold ; 
and  she  did  come  in  and  her  eyes — what  eyes  they  are, 
Rookie ! — they  were  big  as  bread  and  butter  plates.  I 
suspected  she  regarded  me  as  specially  sent.  And  I  lit 
on  him  and  told  him,  in  good  set  terms,  that  if  I  knew  of 
his  driving  his  wife  out  of  the  house  in  one  of  his  sprees, 
I'd  have  him  hauled  up  and  testify  myself.  Then  I  or 
dered  him  to  get  his  hat  and  walk  home  with  me." 

"And  he  did !"  cried  Raven,  in  amazement  at  her.  "Oh, 
yes,  of  course  he  did.  Go  on." 

"Yes,  he  came  to  heel  with  a  promptness  that  would 
have  surprised  you.  And  I  didn't  let  up  a  minute.  I 
discoursed  all  the  way,  on  the  whole  duty  of  man." 

"Did  he  answer?" 

"Yes.  That  is,  he  spoke  twice,  the  only  times  I'd  let 
him.  Once  he  broke  in :  'I  ain't  a  drinkin'  man.'  That 
rankled,  you  see." 

"What  did  you  say?" 


OLD  CROW  193 

"I  said:  'Yes,  you  are,  too.  No  decent  man  would  act 
as  you've  been  acting,  unless  he  was  drunk.  And  prob 
ably,'  I  said,  'you've  been  brewing  it  in  the  cellar,  and 
selling  it  to  the  neighbors.' ' 

"That  was  a  bliffer." 

"It  was.  I  had  an  idea  he  might  drop  dead  in  his 
tracks." 

"That  all  he  said?" 

"Yes.  Oh,  no,  there  was  one  other  thing.  He  asked 
me  if  I  were  saved." 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"Told  him  not  to  be  a  fool." 

Raven  lifted  up  his  voice  and  laughed. 

They  were  opposite  his  own  house,  and  Dick,  who  had 
just  opened  the  front  door,  heard  him. 

"Oh,"  said  Dick  icily,  when  they  came  up  to  him.  "So 
that's  where  you  were.  Uncle  Jack" — for  now  he  saw  he 
had  just  cause  for  anger — "I'll  thank  you  to  let  my  hat 
alone." 

"Yes,  Dick,"  said  Raven  meekly.  "But  I  saw  it  and 
it's  such  a  dandy  hat." 

"Don't  be  rude  to  your  only  uncle,"  said  Nan. 

She  was  slipping  off  her  coat  and  Raven  judged,  see 
ing  her  so  calm,  that  her  evening  pleased  her. 

"Mother  in  there?"  Raven  inquired  of  Dick. 

He  had  hung  up  the  pilfered  coat  and  hat,  writh  great 
nicety  of  care,  in  the  hall  closet. 

"No,"  said  Dick.     "She's  gone  to  bed." 

The  implication  was  that  she  shouldn't  have  been 
allowed  to  get  bored  enough  to  go  to  bed. 

"I'm  going,  too,"  said  Nan.  She  gave  her  hand  to 
Raven.  "  'Night,  Rookie."  Then  she  apparently  remem 
bered  Dick,  and  shook  her  head  at  him.  "Silly!"  she 
commented.  "Nobody'll  love  you  if  you  behave  like  that." 


194  OLD  CROW 

Dick  did  not  answer.  He  turned  about  and  went  into 
the  library,  and  Raven  following,  after  he  had  seen  Nan 
at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  found  him  reading  a  day-old  paper 
with  a  studied  absorption  it  was  evident  he  was  far  from 
feeling. 


XVIII 

Dick  tossed  the  paper  aside  and  turned  upon  Raven 
who,  taking  his  chair  at  the  hearth,  had  bent  to  throw 
on  a  handful  of  light  wood:  the  sticks  that  wake  and 
change  a  room  so  completely  that  they  might  almost 
lighten  the  mood  of  the  man  their  burning  plays  upon. 

"Look  here,"  said  Dick,  "you  put  the  devil  into  Nan. 
What  do  you  do  it  for?" 

Raven  looked  up  at  him  in  a  complete  surprise. 

"No,  I  don't.  The  devil?  Nan's  got  less  to  do  with 
the  devil  than  anybody  you  and  I  ever  saw.  She's  kept 
herself  unspotted.  She's  a  child." 

This  last  he  said  of  sudden  intent  for,  having  noted 
its  effect  on  Milly,  he  wondered  how  it  would  strike  Dick. 

"Oh,  no,  she  isn't,"  said  Dick,  with  bitterness.  "Un 
spotted — yes,  of  course  she  is.  But  Nan  knows  her  way 
about.  She  can  play  fast  and  loose  with  the  rest 
of  'em." 

He  stopped,  conscious  of  talking  too  much,  and 
ashamed  of  it.  Raven  remembered  that  quick  interchange 
of  ownership  and  repudiation  between  the  two  as  they 
flashed  back  at  each  other  in  his  library,  those  weeks  ago, 
but  he  could  not  tell  the  boy  Nan  had  kissed  him  out  of 
her  impetuous  bounty  only  because  the  terrors  of  the 
time  had  lifted  her  beyond  habit  and  because  Dick's  need 
was  so  great.  She  had  put  the  draught  of  life  to  his  lips, 
that  was  all.  He  remembered  Monna  Vanna  going  to  the 
sacrificial  tent,  and  his  heart  melted  at  the  thought  of 

195 


196  OLD  CROW 

woman's  wholesale  giving  even  when  the  act  is  bound  to 
recoil  upon  herself  alone. 

"You'd  better  not  remind  her  of  anything  she  said  to 
you  over  there,"  he  allowed  himself  to  advise.  "Things 
were  pretty  strenuous  then,  Dick,  don't  you  remember? 
We've  come  back  to  a" — his  voice  failed  him  as  he  thought 
how  base  a  time  they  had  returned  to — "a  different  sort 
of  thing  altogether.  I'm  an  old  fellow,  according  to  you, 
but  there's  one  thing  I  know.  You  won't  get  a  girl  by 
'flying  off  the  handle,'  as  Charlotte  would  say.  Honest, 
old  boy,  when  you  have  these  fits  of  yours,  you  don't 
seem,  according  to  the  prophet  of  your  generation,  as 
impressive  as  usual." 

"Who  is  the  prophet  of  my  generation?"  put  in  Dick 
sourly,  as  if  that  were  the  issue  between  them. 

"G.  B.  S.,  I've  understood,"  said  Raven  mildly.  "Don't 
I  recall  your  telling  me  he  was  the  greatest  ever,  at  least 
since  Aristophanes?" 

"Oh,  cut  it,"  said  Dick,  whose  gods  were  subject  to 
change. 

"Cut  it  by  all  means.  But  there  is  a  thing  or  two  I'd 
like  your  vote  on.  Your  mother  now :  what's  your  im 
pression  of  her  plans  about  staying  along  here?  Think 
she's  game  to  tough  it  out  as  long  as  I  do?" 

"She'll  stay  as  long  as  Nan  does."  Dick  was  frowning 
into  the  fire,  and  Raven  doubted  whether  one  of  his 
admonitory  words  had  sunk  in.  "I  had  an  idea  I  could 
go  back  to  town  to-morrow  morning  and  wire  her  I'd 
broken  my  leg  or  something.  But  Nan's  got  to  go 
with  me." 

"Nan  will  do  as  she  pleases,"  said  Raven.  He  rose 
from  his  chair  disgusted  with  young  love  so  unpicturesque 
and  cub-like.  "Turn  off  the  lights,  will  you,  when  you 
go?"  And  he  went  off  to  bed. 


OLD  CROW  197 

But  in  the  morning,  when  lie  came  down,  Dick  met  him 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs.  It  was  a  changed  Dick.  His 
lip  was  trembling.  Raven  concerned,  yet  unable  to  deny 
himself  a  flippant  inward  comment,  thought  the  boy 
looked  as  if  he'd  been  saying  his  prayers. 

"She's  gone,  Jack,"  said  Dickf 

In  stress  of  intimacy,  he  often  dropped  the  prefatory 
title. 

"Gone?"  Raven's  mind  flew  to  Tira.     "Where?" 

"Back  to  Boston.  Walked  to  the  station.  Took  the 
milk  train.  Charlotte  says  she  simply  walked  out  and 
said  she  wasn't  coming  back." 

"Your  mother  or — you  don't  mean  Nan?" 

"Nan,  yes.  Do  you  see  mother  walking  five  miles  to 
a  train?"  But  if  Dick  was  unsettled,  this  was  not  his 
surly  mood  of  the  night  before.  "If  I  drove  her  away" — 
he  began,  and  then  ended  with  an  appealingness  to  be 
remembered  of  the  Dick  who  had  not  been  nettled  by  life, 
"Jack,  I  wish  she  wouldn't." 

"I'll  ask  Charlotte,"  said  Raven.  "Your  mother  out 
yet?  No?  Wrell,  don't  bring  her  into  it." 

He  went  off  to  the  kitchen  where  Charlotte  was  just 
setting  little  silver  pots  on  a  damask-covered  tray.  She 
glanced  up  at  him,  not  absently,  because  Charlotte  always 
seemed  so  charged  with  energy  that  she  could  turn  from 
one  task  and  give  full  attention  to  another. 

"For  Mrs.  Powell,"  she  explained,  setting  her  hands  to 
the  tray,  as  if  she  expected  him  to  make  whatever  remark 
he  would  without  delaying  her.  "She's  havin'  her  break 
fast  in  bed." 

"Dick  tells  me "  he  began,  and  she  nodded. 

"Yes,  she's  gone.  Nan,  you  was  inquirin'  about,  wa'n't 
you?  It's  all  right.  I  shouldn't  ask  any  questions,  if  I 
was  you:  not  yet  anyways.  I've  got  a  kind  of  an  idea 


198  OLD  CROW 

Dick'll  be  takin'  the  noon  back  to  Boston.  Maybe  his 
mother,  too.  But  there!" 

This  last  was  as  if  it  were  too  much  to  hope  for,  and 
she  lifted  the  tray  and  hurried  away  with  it  to  Old  Crow's 
room.  Raven  went  thoughtfully  back  to  the  hall  where 
Dick  stood  waiting,  gnawing  at  his  lip,  and  looking  curi 
ously  like  the  Dick  who  had  been  a  boy  and  come  to  Uncle 
Jack  to  have  his  fortunes  mended  as  they  affected  kite 
or  ball. 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "she's  gone.  Don't  take  it  that 
way,  old  man.  Nan  knows  what's  best  for  her." 

"Walked  to  the  station,"  said  Dick  bitterly.  "Just 
plain  cut  stick  and  ran.  Probably  carried  a  bag.  All 
because  I  made  it  so  sickening  for  her  she  couldn't  stay." 

Raven  thought  of  the  things  Nan  had  carried  in  the 
work  of  the  last  years — supplies,  babies  born  on  retreats. 
She  had  seen  the  fortunes  of  war.  But  there  was  no  need 
of  bracing  Dick  by  telling  him  he  could  testify  she  hadn't 
any  bag.  If  the  boy  could  be  melted  into  a  passion  of 
ruth  over  Nan,  instead  of  a  passion  of  resentment,  so 
much  the  better  for  him. 

"Come  and  have  breakfast,"  he  said.  "Charlotte's 
bringing  it  in." 

They  went  together,  and  when  Dick  had  bolted  his 
coffee  and  egg  he  said: 

"Of  course  I've  got  to  take  the  11.03." 

"Of  course,"  said  Raven.  He  knew  if  he  were  a  young 
lover  who  had  offended  Nan  and  driven  her  away,  that  was 
what  he  should  do :  follow  and  humble  himself  before  her. 
"Jerry'll  drive  you  down." 

So  it  happened  that  when  Amelia,  carefully  dressed, 
came  out  of  her  room  at  noon,  Dick  had  left  without  a 
word  to  her  and  her  dignified  resentment  was  only  diverted 
by  hearing  Nan,  too,  had  gone. 


OLD  CROW  190 

"John,"  said  she,  disposing  herself  by  the  fire,  "I 
should  like  to  know  how  you  account  for  that  girl?" 

"For  Nan  ?"  said  Raven  absently.  He  was  wishing  Nan 
had  found  it  easy  to  tell  him  she  was  going.  "I  don't 
account  for  Nan.  I  don't  have  to." 

"So  unexpected,"  said  Amelia.  "So  absolutely  imper 
vious  to  everything  we've  brought  them  up  to  reverence. 
It's  all  of  a  piece.  Depend  upon  it,  no  young  girl  could 
go  over  there  and  do  the  things  she  did  and  not  feel  the 
effects  of  it:  for  life,  absolutely  for  life.  You  yourself 
feel  the  effects  in  one  way,  the  young  ones  in  another." 

Raven  was  very  considerate  of  her,  left  stranded  there 
with  him.  But  after  the  noon  dinner,  when  they  settled 
again  by  the  fire,  he  began  to  realize  the  magnitude  of  his 
task.  He  was  simply  saddled  with  Amelia.  She  hadn't 
been  able  to  get  her  alienist  up  here,  but  she  had  con 
stituted  herself  a  psychic  detective  on  her  own  account. 
At  first  he  didn't  mind,  she  was  so  "simple  honest"  in 
her  expedients.  It  was  amusing,  to  a  moderate  degree, 
to  evade  them.  How  did  he  sleep?  Did  he  dream?  Did 
he  know  anything  about  the  psychology  of  dreams? 
There  was  Freud. 

"Yes,"  Raven  interpolated.  "Nasty  fellow.  Peeps 
and  botanizes  on  his  mother's  grave." 

Did  the  world  still  seem  to  him  as  hopeless  as  it  did 
at  the  time  of  his  writing  the  letter?  That  gave  him  an 
idea. 

"Where  is  that  letter?"  he  asked,  cutting  across  the 
track  of  her  calculated  approaches.  "What  became  of  it?" 

She  did  not  evade  him.     She  was  too  surprised. 

"I  gave  it,"  she  owned,  "to  one  of  our  doctors  at  home. 
For  a  medical  congress." 

"The  devil  you  did !"  Raven  permitted  himself.  "Milly, 
sometimes  I  thank  you  advanced  women — O  Lord !" 


200  OLD  CROW 

"What  else  could  I  do?"  Milly  inquired,  with  her  de 
liberate  fair-mindedness,  which  was,  he  miserably  knew,  a 
part  of  her  culture.  "Surely,  you  wouldn't  suppress  evi 
dence.  And  it  won't  be  traced  to  you.  You're  simply 
Mr.  X." 

Raven  was  silent.  He  was  thinking  what  a  fool  he  had 
been  to  unpack  his  heart  with  words,  and  that  if  he 
told  Milly  so  he  should  simply  be  unpacking  it  some  more. 
He  looked  at  the  clear  winter  day  occupying  itself  out 
there  without  him,  and  wondered  why  the  deuce  he 
couldn't  put  on  snowshoes  and  tramp  off  his  discontent 
leaving  her  to  fight  her  boredom  by  the  fire.  She'd 
brought  it  on  herself,  hadn't  she?  Nobody  wanted  her  to 
come.  Was  there  some  hidden  force  in  women,  their 
apparent  vulnerability  to  the  harsh  world  conditions  that 
were  bound  to  crush  out  even  them  in  the  end?  They 
seemed  so  weak  you  had,  in  mercy,  to  reenforce  them  and 
then  they  proved  so  horribly  strong,  and  used  their 
strength  against  you,  depleted  as  you  were  by  fighting 
for  them.  Anyway,  if  he  could  get  Milly's  blood  to 
moving  and  pump  some  of  this  hill  air  into  her  she,  too, 
might  be  a  more  wholesome  citizen  of  even  an  unfeeling 
earth. 

"Want  to  go  to  walk,  Milly?"  he  suggested  seductively, 
and  she  looked  at  him  pleasantly,  grateful  for  the  tone,  at 
least. 

"No,"  she  said,  "we're  so  cozy  here." 

Cozy!  it  might  be  cozy,  if  that  meant  being  choked. 
But  he  thought  he  could  stand  a  little  more  of  it,  and  then 
he  would  at  least  drop  asleep  and  snore.  The  indiscretions 
of  the  body  were  terrible  to  Amelia.  And  he  did  fall  into 
a  hopeless  lethargy,  and  only  about  five  o'clock,  when 
the  early  dark  had  come,  threw  it  off  and  got  to  his 
feet. 


OLD  CROW  201 

"  'Bye,"  he  said.     "I'll  be  back  for  supper." 

Before  she  could  answer,  he  was  gone.  Now  he  was 
afraid  she  might  say,  with  an  ill-timed  acquiescence,  that 
after  all  she  would  have  a  little  walk,  and  he  knew  he  sim 
ply  couldn't  stand  it.  By  the  fire,  making  an  inexorable 
assault  on  his  senses,  the  calm,  steady  beat  of  her  futile 
talk  could  be  borne.  You  bore  it  by  listening  through  a 
dream.  But  out  of  doors,  when  the  crisp  air  had  waked 
you,  you'd  simply  have  to  swear  or  run.  He  did  run, 
snatching  his  hat  as  he  went,  up  the  road  toward  Ten- 
ney's.  It  was  not  a  reasoned  flight,  but  he  did  want  to 
calm  himself  by  the  light  burning  through  their  windows, 
perhaps  a  glimpse  of  Tira  moving  about.  The  night  was 
going  to  be  clear  and  not  too  cold  for  pleasant  lingering. 
Over  beyond  the  rising  slope  opposite  Nan's  house  he 
heard  an  owl  hooting  and,  nearer,  the  barking  of  a  fox. 
He  turned  that  way  and  stood  facing  the  dark  slope.  He 
knew  what  those  trees  were  in  spring,  pink  and  light  brown 
in  the  marshes  at  the  foot  of  the  rise,  running  up  into  a 
mist  of  sunshine  with  islands  of  evergreen.  Then,  turn 
ing  to  go  on,  he  cast  a  glance  at  the  house  and  stopped 
with  a  word  of  surprise.  There  was  a  light.  Somebody 
had  broken  in  (an  incredible  happening  here)  and  was 
beguiled  by  loneliness  and  silence  into  an  absurd  security. 
He  turned  into  the  path  and  went  softly  up  to  the  front 
door,  lifted  the  latch  and  was  stepping  in  when  some 
one  came.  It  was  Nan.  She  was  in  the  hall,  a  pile  of 
blankets  in  her  arms.  Seeing  him,  she  did  not  start, 
only  laughed  a  little,  all  the  mischief  of  her  face  running 
into  it  and  waking  it  like  the  sun  on  moving  water. 

"Nan,"  said  Raven,  "Nan,  my  darling,  why  are  you 
here?" 

Nan  did  the  incredible  thing.  She  laid  her  pile  of 
blankets  in  a  chair,  came  back  to  him  and  deliberately 


202  OLD  CROW 

put  arms  over  his  shoulders  and  about  his  neck.  Her 
face,  beautifully  sweet  in  its  new  flush,  was  close  to 
his.  It  might  well  be  flushed,  for  he  had  called  her 
darling,  and  Nan,  feeling  lorn  and  bewildered  in  losing 
the  Rookie  she  used  to  think  she  knew,  felt  for  the 
instant  that  she  had  got  home  again.  She  had  lost 
him,  she  felt,  when  she  saw  the  shaken  look  he  gave 
the  strange  beautiful  woman  up  in  the  hut.  Now  here 
he  was  again,  quite  the  same,  only  it  was  true  that  she 
had  not  seemed  to  be,  for  years,  what  he  called  her  now. 

"Rookie,  my  darling,"  said  Nan,  seeing  no  reason  why 
she  shouldn't  give  him  the  precious  thing  back  again,  "I'm 
terrible  glad  you've  come.  Charlotte  tell  you?"  She  put 
her  cheek  against  his  for  a  minute,  took  her  arms  away 
and  turned  into  the  west  sitting-room  where  a  fire  was 
leaping  and  making  soft,  living  shadows  on  the  ceiling. 
In  the  middle  of  the  room  she  stopped  him  with  a  hand 
on  his  arm.  "Look  at  the  shadows,"  she  said,  in  a  low 
voice,  as  if  they  might  hear  and  flee  away.  "It's  exactly 
as  if  they  lived  here  all  the  time  and  waited  for  us  to  come 
back  to  them.  Look  at  the  ones  behind  those  candle 
sticks.  They've  always  been  just  like  this,  little  old 
scholarly  gentlemen  in  queer  hats  walking  along  a  London 
street.  I  used  to  think  they  were  going  to  old  second 
hand  shops  to  buy  old  second-hand  books.  I  wouldn't 
have  those  candlesticks  moved  by  half  an  inch  for  fear 
the  shadows  would  get  mad  and  go  with  them.  Sit  down, 
Rookie,  there  where  you  used  to  read  to  me.  I'll  light  up, 
so  we  can  see  each  other." 

He  did  sit  down  without  waiting  for  her,  on  the  little 
squat,  old-fashioned  sofa,  and  Nan  went  about  the  room 
with  her  match  and  dotted  it  with  candles.  Raven  looked 
after  her  in  her  housewifely  progress ;  he  was  still  con 
cerned,  still  grave  over  her  leaving  his  house  for  this. 


OLD  CROW  203 

She  had  on  her  walking  suit,  whatever  frills  she  might 
have  discovered  upstairs,  and  she  looked  ready  for  out 
door  enterprise.  What  a  hardy  child  she  was,  slender 
and  supple,  but  taut  for  action  in  the  homespun  service 
of  the  day !  She  threw  her  match  into  the  fire  and  came  to 
him,  sat  down  beside  him  and,  like  the  Nan  of  a  hundred 
years  ago,  her  childhood  and  his  youth,  put  her  head  down 
on  his  shoulder. 

"Nan,"  said  he,  abandoning  what  he  sometimes  con 
sidered  the  heavy  father  attitude  and  jamming  the  silky 
head  down  into  its  hollow,  "what  did  you  do  it  for? 
Didn't  you  like  my  house?" 

"Yes,  Rookie  darling,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  of  drowsy 
happiness.  "I  meant  to  stay — truly  I  did — and  cut  in 
when  Mrs.  Powell  tried  to  get  you  to  give  yourself  away 
so  she  could  tell  her  alienists  how  crazy  you  are.  But 
if  I  had,  Dick  would  have  stayed,  too.  He  never'd  have 
gone,  never  in  the  wrorld.  And  he's  so  quarrelsome." 

"How  do  you  know  he's  gone?"  Raven  asked. 

"Why,  of  course  he  has.  He  would,  the  minute  he 
thought  I  had.  Hasn't  he?" 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "he  has.  Nan,  why  the  dickens 
do  you  treat  him  so?  You  mean  to  take  him  in  the 
end." 

"Do  I?"  asked  Nan,  still  most  contentedly.  "Rookie, 
what  a  lot  you  know.  Wake  me  if  you  hear  a  step." 

"A  step?    Who's  coming?" 

"Charlotte.  I  told  her  I  was  no  more  afraid  than  up  in 
your  west  chamber.  Not  so  much:  Dick  and  his  mother 
can't  pounce  on  me  here.  I  didn't  say  that  though. 
Charlotte  thinks  I  just  came  over  for  a  freak;  but  she's 
coming  to  stay  with  me." 

"You  don't  know  what  Charlotte  thinks,"  said  Raven 
succinctly.  "She's  got  a  pretty  accurate  idea  of  all  of  us. 


204  OLD  CROW 

You're  not  going  to  stay  here.     That's  flat.     We'll  blow 
out  the  candles  in  a  minute  or  two  and  poke  off  home." 

"This  is  home,"  said  Nan  and  rubbed  her  cheek  on  his 
coat.  "Darling  Rookie !" 

"You're  running  away  from  Milly,"  said  Raven. 
"That's  all  right.  I  wish  I  could  myself.  But  what  are 
you  going  to  say  when  she  finds  the  house  is  open  and 
you're  here?  I  found  it  out  and  so  can  she.  I  was  going 
by  and  saw  the  light." 

"She  won't  go  by  and  see  the  light,"  said  Nan,  from 
the  same  far  distance.  "Consider  those  pumps.  She 
won't  go  out.  If  she  does,  you  must  just  take  her  the 
other  way.  Head  her  off,  Rookie,  that's  what  you  do, 
head  her  off." 

"Do  you  know,  Nan,"  said  Raven,  with  a  sudden  reso 
lution,  "what  Dick  feels  about  you:  I  mean,  what  makes 
him  so  sore  and  ugly?  He  told  me."  (There  was  a  slight 
disturbance  on  his  shoulder.  Nan  seemed  to  be  shaking 
her  head.)  "He  apparently  can't  get  at  you.  There's 
something  in  you  that  baffles  him,  puts  him  off.  It  makes 
him  mad  as  thunder.  You  won't  let  him  in,  Nan.  You 
don't  let  him  see  you  as  you  are." 

"Why,  Rookie !"  said  Nan.  She  sat  up  straight  and 
looked  him  in  the  face.  Her  eyes  were  beautifully  calm. 
If  her  clinging  to  him  was  against  the  rules  of  this  pres 
ent  life,  nothing  in  her  expression  showed  it.  She  was 
really  like  a  child  used  to  being  loved  and  innocently  de 
manding  it.  "Why,  Rookie,  Dick's  not  more  than  half 
grown  up." 

"He  writes,"  said  Raven  obstinately,  aware  of  having 
really  no  argument. 

"What  kinds  of  books?  Conventional  rot.  Verse. 
Anybody  could  do  it  by  the  yard.  No,  you  needn't  look 
like  that.  'Course  I  couldn't !  But  anybody  that  could 


OLD  CROW  205 

write  at  all.  You  could,  Rookie,  only  you  wouldn't  have 
the  face.  You'd  feel  such  a  fool." 

"Of  course  it's  conventional,"  said  Raven,  "his  poetry 
is.  But  that's  natural  enough.  He  belongs  to  the  new 
school.  You  don't  find  him  conventional  himself,  do  you? 
Too  conventional?" 

"He's  precisely  like  his  mother,"  said  Nan.  She  had 
the  air  of  wanting  to  account  for  him,  once  for  all,  and 
sweep  him  out  of  the  way.  "Only  she's  conventional  about 
waving  her  hair  and  uplift  and  belonging  to  societies,  and 
he's  conventional  about  brotherhood  and  a  new  world  and 
being  too  broad-minded  to  be  healthy.  Don't  you  know 
there  are  crude  things  in  a  man  that  have  got  to  stay 
there,  if  he  is  a  man?  War,  now!  if  some  beast  goes  out 
on  a  prowl  (like  Germany)  the  normal  man  doesn't  call 
it  a  herd  madness  and  quote  the  New  Testament.  He  gets 
his  gun.  So  did  Dick  get  his  gun,  but  now  he  thinks  it's 
all  over,  he's  too  broad-minded  to  live.  Oh,  you  can 
laugh,  Rookie,  but  there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  too 
superior  to  be  decent,  and  that's  Dick.  The  only  time  I 
come  anywhere  near  liking  him  is  when  he  forgets  to  call 
the  world  a  fraternal  sewing  circle  and  comes  out  with  a 
healthy  damn.  That's  the  streak  of  you  in  him.  Don't 
you  know  the  nicest  thing  about  him  is  the  streak  of 
you?" 

Raven  was  not  aware  of  knowing  that,  but  he  had  to 
own,  though  silently,  that  there  was  an  exasperating 
three-quarters  of  Dick  he  himself  could  not,  of  late  years, 
get  along  with.  Was  it  youth?  he  wondered.  Yet  Nan 
was  young.  Who  so  sweetly  sympathetic  as  Nan? 

"Let's  not  talk  about  him,"  said  she.  "Yes,  a  minute 
more,  though.  I've  sent  off  a  letter  to  him.  Charlotte 
was  to  give  it  to  Jerry  to  mail  on  the  train.  It  told  him 
I  shouldn't  tell  where  I  was,  and  I  certainly  shouldn't 


206  OLD  CROW 

come  back  till  he  got  his  mother  away  from  here.     He'd 
simply  got  to  do  it.     I  told  him  plainly." 

"And  then  you're  going  back?     You  promised  him?" 

"I  didn't  promise  him  anything.  Because,  how  could 
I?  I  don't  know  how  things  are  coming  out.  There's  the 
woman." 

"What  woman?" 

He  asked  this  in  a  perfect  good  faith. 

"Mrs.  Tenney."  She  withdrew  from  him  slightly.  If 
Tira  made  his  heart  race,  she  wouldn't  hear  it.  He  should 
not  be  spied  upon.  "Don't  you  know,"  said  she  clearly, 
"I've  got  to  see  this  thing  through?" 

"See  it  through?"  he  repeated.  "You  can't.  She 
won't  let  you.  She  won't  let  me." 

"Of  course  she  won't  let  you.  If  the  man's  mad  with 
jealousy,  he  won't  stand  another  man's  supporting  his 
wife."  " 

"I  should  very  much  doubt  if  she  let  you.  She's  got  a 
loyalty — well,  it's  the  sort  you  read  about  when  a  brute 
breaks  a  woman  and  she  says  she  fell  and  hurt  herself. 
It's  been  the  surprise  of  my  life  that  she  said  a  word  to 
me." 

"That's  easy,"  said  Nan.  "You're  so  awfully  sorry 
for  everybody.  They  feel  it  in  you.  She  thought  you 
were  an  archangel." 

"An  archangel !"  groaned  Raven.  "Good  Lord !  Well, 
what  do  you  propose  doing?" 

"Go  over  there  to-morrow.  Ask  her  to  come  here  and 
help  me  get  the  house  in  order. 

"Then  what?     Talk  to  her?     You'll  frighten  her." 

But  he  knew  Nan  would  frighten  no  one,  not  the  least 
of  the  maimed  and  spent. 

"No,  but  I  thought  maybe  if  things  kept  happening,  I 
could  take  her  back  with  me  to  town,  to  work." 


OLD  CROW  207 

"There's  the  child,"  suggested  Raven. 

"Yes,  that's  a  drawback,"  she  owned  seriously.  "On 
the  other  hand,  it's  an  advantage.  The  child  might  be 
made  the  reason :  to  have  somebody  look  at  him,  you  know. 
I  suppose  you  saw  he  isn't  quite  right." 

"Not  right?  what  do  you  mean?     Deficient?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Nan.  "That  or  something.  Deaf, 
maybe.  But  not  right.  I  hear  something.  It's  Charlotte. 
Kiss  me,  Rookie.  On  my  forehead" — he  did  it — "on  my 
forehead,  on  my  right  cheek,  on  my  left  cheek,  on  my 
chin.  No,  that's  all.  That's  good-night,  Rookie — dar 
ling  Rookie!  It  is  Charlotte.  I'll  let  her  in." 

She  went  to  the  door  and  opened  it  and  Charlotte 
appeared,  done  up  in  an  old-fashioned  shawl  and — Raven 
noted  in  an  amused  incredulity — a  nondescript  knitted 
thing,  old-fashioned  when  he  was  a  child. 

"A  cloud,"  he  said  to  himself.  "That's  what  they  called 
the  thing." 

He  felt  absurdly  thankful  at  seeing  it  again.  It  seemed 
to  assure  him  that  although  the  surface  of  life  might 
heave  and  sink  with  revolution  and  the  fate  of  dynasties, 
Charlotte  and  her  equipment  of  bed-rock  integrity  and 
clouds  existed  still.  She  paused  in  the  doorway  to  take  a 
basket  from  Jerry,  and  closed  the  door  on  him,  after  a 
casual  good-night.  Raven  went  into  the  hall.  The  basket 
was  generous,  in  its  oval  capacity,  the  contents  covered 
with  a  napkin. 

"Want  this  carried  upstairs?"  he  asked,  but  Charlotte 
shook  her  head. 

"No,"  she  said.  "It's  for  her  breakfast.  I  shall  be 
gone  'fore  light."  She  lifted  her  sincere  gaze  to  Raven. 
"I  thought  I'd  come  over,"  she  added.  "I  shouldn't  feel 
easy  to  have  her  here  all  alone.  Jerry  said  he  wanted  I 
should." 


208  OLD  CROW 

Raven  nodded  at  her  and  carried  the  basket  off  into  the 
kitchen,  and  when  he  came  back  both  women  were  upstairs 
and  he  heard  the  interchange  of  voices  and  their  quick 
tread. 

"  'Night,  Rookie,"  Nan  broke  off  her  housewifely  deeds 
to  call,  and  he  called  back: 

"Good  night." 

Then  he  went  out  and  home  again,  and  fulfilled  his 
destiny  for  the  day  by  another  somnolent  hour  with  Milly 
before  the  fire. 


XIX 

Nan  and  Charlotte,  each  in  a  front  chamber,  were 
soon  cozily  in  warmed  sheets.  But  when  Nan  judged 
Charlotte  must  be  asleep,  she  got  up,  put  more  wood  on 
the  dying  fire,  slipped  on  her  fur  coat  over  a  wrapper, 
did  up  her  knees  in  a  blanket  and  sat  down  by  the  win 
dow  she  had  not  yet  opened,  in  anticipation  of  this  hour 
of  the  silent  night.  Really  she  had  lived  for  it,  ever  since 
she  entered  the  hut  and  found  the  strange  woman.  The 
night  at  Raven's  house  had  been  as  still  as  this,  but  there 
were  invisible  disturbances  in  the  air;  they  riddled  her 
chamber  through  and  pierced  her  brain:  what  Amelia 
thought,  what  Dick  thought.  Here  there  was  only  the 
calm  island  of  Charlotte's  beneficence,  and  even  that  lay 
stiller  than  ever  under  the  blanket  of  a  tranquil  sleep.  She 
felt  alone  in  a  world  that  wasn't  troubling  itself  about 
her,  because  it  never  troubled  itself  about  anything. 

The  moon  was  just  up  above  the  fringe  of  trees  at  the 
east  and  shadows  were  black  across  the  snow.  She  sat 
looking  out  with  intentness  as  if  she  were  there  at  the 
window  for  the  sole  purpose  of  watching  the  silent  world, 
but  really  to  get  her  mind  in  order  for  the  next  day  and 
all  the  coming  days.  She  felt  about  the  heart  the  strange 
dropping  we  know  as  grief.  No  wonder  the  mortal  crea 
ture,  looking  on  at  the  commotions  within  the  frail  refuge 
of  his  body,  should  have  evolved  the  age-old  phrase  that 
the  heart  bleeds.  Nan's  heart  had  been  bleeding  a  long 
time.  There  used  to  be  drops  on  each  shock  of  her  meet- 

209 


210  OLD  CROW 

ing  Raven  after  absence  and  finding  herself  put  away  from 
the  old  childish  state  of  delighted  possession.  At  first, 
she  had  believed  this  was  one  of  the  mysterious  cruelties 
of  Aunt  Anne's  inexorable  delicacy  of  behavior ;  but  when 
she  grew  older  she  had  one  day  a  great  happy  light  of 
understanding,  one  of  those  floods  that  sweep  over  youth 
after  washing  at  the  barriers  of  its  innocence.  Rookie 
himself  had  put  her  away.  It  was  one  of  the  scrupulous 
things  he  had  done  for  her,  because  she  had  been  too 
ignorant  to  do  them  for  herself.  He  had  seen  she  was 
grown-up.  It  was  true,  Nan  had  to  own,  that  this  was 
one  of  the  lines,  drawn  across  her  life,  that  pleased  Aunt 
Anne  most,  because  it  removed  her  (or  seemed  to  remove 
her)  from  Rookie.  Aunt  Anne  was  jealous  to  her  finger 
tips,  the  ends  of  those  beautiful,  delicately  prisoning 
hands.  Nan  had  tried  never  to  acknowledge  that.  It 
always  seemed  such  a  barbarity  to  find  in  Aunt  Anne  the 
things  that  would  have  shocked  her  in  herself. 

To-night  she  looked  it  in  the  face.  Aunt  Anne  was 
jealous.  That  was  the  first  count.  All  her  own  life,  too, 
Nan  had  been  vaguely  irritated  by  Raven's  not  marrying 
Aunt  Anne.  He  was  her  property,  wasn't  he,  in  a  queer 
way,  never  questioned,  never,  on  his  part,  rebelled  against? 
Yet  it  was  a  bondage.  And  if  the  real  reason  was  that 
Aunt  Anne  wouldn't  have  him,  why  didn't  he  play  the 
man  and  batter  down  her  scruples,  even  that  barrier  of 
the  years  between  them?  But  after  that  sudden  look  into 
Raven's  eyes,  the  night  she  told  him  about  the  will,  she 
had  never  been  able  to  think  of  him  as  loving  Aunt  Anne 
at  all.  It  was  that  horrible  compassion  of  his,  she  be 
lieved,  that  obedience  of  the  male  to  the  weaker  (and  yet 
the  stronger)  principle  of  the  demanding  opposite.  He 
had  always  been  in  bondage  through  his  affections,  first  to 
his  mother,  then  Aunt  Anne,  and  then  suddenly,  terrify- 


OLD  CROW 

ingly,  but  most  gloriously  because  this  was  the  only  wildly 
spontaneous  thing  of  all,  to  the  strange  woman  in  the  hut. 
He  was  innocent  there,  he  was  unthinking,  he  didn't  know 
what  tale  his  eyes  told  of  him.  It  wasn't  earthly  passion 
they  told.  She  had  seen  many  things  in  her  tumultuous 
life  of  the  last  few  years,  this  woman  he  called  a  child. 
The  eyes  told  how  his  soul  was  going  down  in  a  wreckage 
of  worship  of  the  charm  that  blooms  in  a  few  women  only, 
translated  to  him  through  the  pity  of  this  woman's 
wretched  state.  Should  she  interpret  him  to  himself? 
She  could,  without  offending.  Rookie  was  sensitive  to  see, 
and  she  found  her  hand  steady  to  hold  the  torch.  But 
there  she  saw  herself  slipping  into  Aunt  Anne's  manda 
tory  attitude,  choking,  dominating,  sapping  him,  heart 
and  brain.  It  mustn't  be  done.  It  shouldn't.  Rookie  had 
had  enough  of  spiritual  government.  Above  all,  she 
wanted  him  to  have  his  life :  not  the  sterile  monotony  of  a 
man  who  renounced  and  served  and  deferred  to  managing 
females. 

Had  the  woman  any  soul  in  her?  If  Rookie  kidnaped 
her  (and  the  child,  it  would  have  to  be,  the  doubtful 
child)  would  she  pay  in  love  for  love,  or  only  an  uncom 
prehending  worship?  One  thing  Nan  had  determined  on, 
the  minute  she  opened  her  door  to  him  this  night  and  saw 
the  quick  concern  in  his  face  and  heard  his  tone  in  greet 
ing:  Rookie  should  feel  there  was  somebody  in  this  dis 
ordered  world  who  plainly  adored  him.  If  he  could  be 
lieve  that  the  better  for  her  putting  her  cheek  on  his  and 
loving  him  to  death,  he  should  have  it.  Rookie  should 
feel  warm.  As  for  her,  she  was  cold.  She  shivered  there 
by  the  window  and  knew  it  was  the  inner  tremor  of 
her  nerves,  for  the  fire  still  leaped  and  the  room  was 
pulsing.  "The  amount  of  it  is,"  said  Nan  to  herself, 
"my  heart's  broken.  Oh,  hang  Aunt  Anne !"  Then 


OLD  CROW 

she  remembered  Aunt  Anne  was  dead.  But  she  would 
not  have  recalled  the  little  missile  hurled  at  the  impal 
pable  ghost  through  the  shade  of  removedness  that  en 
veloped  her.  Nan  was  inexorable  in  standing  for  what 
she  saw. 

In  the  morning  she  found  the  fires  burning  below  stairs 
and  her  tray  set  out,  with  cup  and  plate.  Charlotte  had 
gone.  Nan  felt  the  mounting  of  spirit  due  a  healthy  body, 
with  the  new  day,  and  made  her  toast  and  her  coffee  with 
a  great  sense  of  the  pleasure  of  it  all.  There  was  one 
drawback.  It  was  distinctly  "no  fair"  to  let  Charlotte 
come  over  to  companion  her  at  night  when  there  was  so 
much  to  do  with  the  exigent  Amelia  on  board.  But  that 
must  settle  itself.  If  she  could  get  Tira  (whom  she 
also  called  "the  woman"  in  her  thoughts)  to  run  away 
with  her  to  town,  it  could  hardly  be  done  too  quickly.  So 
immediately  after  her  breakfast  she  put  on  coat  and  hat 
and  went  "over  to  Tenney's,"  as  the  country  folk  would 
put  it.  This  was  a  day  brightly  blue,  with  mounting 
warmth,  the  road  a  smoothness  of  packed  snow.  When 
she  reached  the  house,  Tenney  was  just  driving  up  to  the 
side  door  in  the  sleigh,  and  she  rejoiced.  It  made  her 
errand  easier.  He  was  going  to  town,  and  she  could 
see  the  woman  alone.  But  immediately  Tira,  carrying 
the  baby,  a  little  white  lump  in  coat  and  hood,  came  out 
and  stepped  into  the  sleigh.  She,  too,  was  going.  Tenney 
waited  while  she  settled  herself  and  tucked  the  robe  about 
her.  He  was  not  solicitous,  Nan  saw,  but  the  typical 
country  husband,  soberly  according  her  time  to  get  her 
self  and  the  child  "well  fixed."  Nan,  waiting,  her  eyes  on 
them,  still  halted  until  they  drove  out,  and  nodded  her 
good  morning.  Tenney  drew  up.  His  sharp  eyes  sig 
naled  her. 

"I've  got  it  in  mind,"  he  announced,  "to  have  a  prayer- 


OLD  CROW  213 

meetin',  come  Wednesday.  I'm  goin'  to  put  up  a  notice 
in  the  post-office." 

He  turned  a  reminding  look  on  Tira  who  responded  by 
what  seemed  to  Nan  an  unwilling  confirmation: 

"You're  invited  to  come." 

"You're  all  invited,"  said  Tenney  harshly,  as  if  Tira 
had  lagged  in  urgency.  "All  on  ye." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Nan,  with  a  cheerful  decisiveness. 
"I'll  come." 

Tenney  slapped  the  reins  and  they  went  on,  to  a  jin 
gling  of  bells  thinly  melodious  in  the  clear  air,  and  Nan 
turned  back  to  her  house.  How  beautiful  she  was,  the 
strange  woman,  she  thought,  with  a  renewal  of  her  wonder 
over  Tira,  the  calm  majesty  of  her,  the  way  she  sat  erect 
in  the  old  red  sleigh  as  if  she  were  queen  of  a  triumphal 
progress,  the  sad  inscrutability  of  her  wonderful  eyes,  the 
mouth  with  its  evasive  curves;  how  would  an  artist  indi 
cate  them  delicately  enough  so  that  you  kept  them  in 
your  memory  as  she  saw  herself  doing,  and  were  yet  not 
able  to  say  whether  it  was  the  indented  corner  or  the  full 
bow?  She  found  herself  remembering  poetic  lines  about 
Grecian  Helen,  and  then  recalling  herself  to  New  Eng 
land  and  the  unlikelihood  of  such  bewitchingness.  There 
couldn't  be  a  woman  so  compact  of  mystery  and  uncon- 
sidered  aloofness,  and  yet  beauty,  beauty  to  the  bone. 

When  the  Tenneys  drove  by  Raven's,  each  with  face  set 
forward,  not  looking  at  the  house,  Raven  was  in  the  kit 
chen  consulting  Charlotte  about  supplies.  Jerry,  also, 
was  going  to  town,  for,  imperious  even  in  her  unspoken 
needs,  Amelia  would  have  to  be  delicately  fed.  Charlotte, 
hearing  the  bells,  glanced  absently  at  the  window  and 
Raven's  eyes  followed.  He  felt  his  heart  give  a  little 
added  start,  of  relief,  he  knew.  At  least  Tenney  wouldn't 
stop  the  horse  and  brain  his  wife  on  the  road. 


OLD  CROW 

"There's  the  Tenneys,"  said  Charlotte.  "That's  a 
queer  kind  of  a  woman,  that  wife  he's  got." 

"Why  is  she?"  Raven  demanded. 

Whatever  Charlotte  felt,  he  must  pluck  it  out  of  her. 
It  was  sure  to  be  true. 

She  spoke  thoughtfully,  as  if  reviewing  what  was  not 
altogether  clear  in  her  own  mind. 

"I  -dunno's  I  know.  But  she's  so  kind  o'  quiet.  Pleas 
ant  enough,  but  you  al'ays  feel  as  if  she's  a  mile  off." 

Yes,  Raven  owned  to  himself,  Charlotte  was  right. 
That  was  the  way  he  felt,  only  it  was  not  one  mile  but 
many  miles  off. 

"That  baby,  too,"  said  Charlotte,  her  brows  knitted, 
as  if  the  whole  thing  troubled  her.  "The  baby  ain't 
right." 

Just  what  Nan  said.     What  witchery  women  had! 

"What's  the  matter  with  the  baby?"  he  asked,  and 
was  nettled  at  the  roughness  of  his  voice. 

Charlotte  shook  her  head  and  seemed  to  shake  off  per 
plexed  imaginings. 

"I  dunno,"  she  said  again.  "But  suthin'  is.  An'  that's 
the  queer  part  on't.  You  never'd  know  whether  Mis' 
Tenney  knows  it  or  whether  she  don't.  But  there !"  Then 
her  mind  settled  to  its  task.  "No,  you  couldn't  git  sweet 
breads  this  time  o'  year,  up  here  anyways.  They  don't 
kill." 

Raven,  after  the  consultation  was  over  and  Charlotte 
had  explained  the  ease  with  which  she  could  pack  a  ham 
per  of  hot  dishes  to  carry  over  to  Nan,  "come  one 
o'clock,"  went  to  his  social  task  in  the  library  where 
Amelia  sat  at  the  drowsy  rite  of  warming  her  toes.  He 
had  a  more  or  less  relaxed  feeling  with  Amelia  now ;  she 
had  shot  her  bolt  and  sprung  her  mine  and  could  hardly 
have  more  in  hiding.  But  she  had,  the  completest  shock 


OLD  CROW  215 

possible.  She  sat  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  doorway, 
waiting,  and  her  question  was  ready : 

"John,  what  do  you  know  about  Uncle  John?  Great- 
uncle,  of  course  I  mean." 

Raven  advanced  into  the  room  and  chose  a  seat  by  the 
window.  Amelia,  still  thinly  clad  above  and  ineffectually 
baking  herself,  made  him  irrationally  want  to  get  away 
from  fires. 

"Old  Crow?"  he  asked. 

"Why,  yes,  if  you  want  to  call  him  that.  I  suppose 
that's  what  the  country  people  did  call  him." 

''Why,"  said  Raven  slowly,  getting  his  recollections  in 
order,  prepared  to  give  her  what  was  good  for  her  and 
no  more,  "I  suppose  there's  no  doubt  he  was  an  eccentric. 
He  built  the  hut  up  there  and  moved  into  it  and  finally 
went  over  the  countryside  doctoring,  in  an  unscientific 
way — and  praying — and  finally  hauled  in  Billy  Jones,  a 
sort  of  old  rake  they  thought  of  sending  to  the  poor  farm, 
and  took  care  of  him  till  he  died.  Billy  was  a  tank.  When 
we  were  little,  there  used  to  be  stories  we  got  hold  of  about 
the  way  Billy's  legs  swelled.  One  of  the  boys  'down 
along'  told  me  he'd  been  up  there  and  looked  into  the  hut 
and  Billy  sat  there  in  a  chair  with  his  legs  bandaged  and 
the  water  dripping  through  to  the  floor.  We  all  wished 
our  legs  would  drip.  We  thought  it  was  great.  Mother 
wouldn't  let  me  go  up  there  after  old  Billy  went  into  resi 
dence.  But  we  boys  kept  on  hearing  about  him.  I've  no 
doubt  we  got  most  of  the  salient  points." 

He  was  giving  her  more  than  was  good  for  her,  after 
all.  Amelia  wouldn't  like  this.  She  didn't  like  it. 

"Shocking!"  she  commented,  shaking  her  head  in  re 
pudiation. 

"I've  thought  since,"  said  Raven,  partly  in  musing 
recollection  and  perhaps  a  little  to  show  her  what  she 


216  OLD  CROW 

got  by  fishing  for  old  memories,  "Billy  had  cirrhosis  of 
the  liver.  As  I  said,  Billy  was  a  tank." 

"We  needn't  go  into  the  question  of  Jones,"  said 
Amelia,  with  dignity.  "He  doesn't  concern  us.  It  was  a 
perfectly  unjustifiable  thing  for  Uncle  John  to  do,  this 
taking  him  into  his  own  house  and  nursing  him.  Per 
fectly.  But  it  only  shows  how  unbalanced  Uncle  John 
really  was." 

"Call  him  Old  Crow,  Milly,"  Raven  interrupted  her, 
resolved  she  should  accept  the  picture  as  it  was  if  she 
were  bent  on  any  picture  at  all.  "Everybody  knew  him 
by  that:  just  Old  Crow.  At  first,  I  suppose  it  was  the 
country  way  of  trying  to  be  funny  over  his  name,  as  soon 
as  he  got  funny  to  them  with  his  queerness.  And  then, 
after  he'd  gone  round  nursing  the  sick  and  praying  with 
the  afflicted,  they  may  have  put  real  affection  into  it. 
You  can't  tell.  You  see,  Milly,  Old  Crow  was  a  practical 
Christian.  From  all  I've  heard,  he  was  about  the  only  one 
you  and  I've  ever  met." 

"He  was  certainly  not  normal,"  said  Amelia  ingen 
uously,  and  while  Raven  sat  rolling  that  over  in  his  de 
lighted  mind  and  getting  the  full  logic  of  it,  she  continued : 
"Do  you  know,  John,  he  was  a  very  commanding  man, 
very  handsome  really?  You  look  like  him." 

"Much  obliged,  Milly,"  said  Raven.  He  was  smiling 
broadly  at  her.  His  eyes — the  crinkles  about  them  mul 
tiplied — withdrew  in  a  way  that  always  made  her  uneasy, 
she  was  so  unlikely,  at  such  times,  to  guess  what  he  was 
thinking  about.  In  another  instant  he  was  to  inform 
her.  It  all  came  over  him,  in  a  wave.  He  gasped  under 
the  force  of  it  and  then  he  roared  with  laughter.  "By 
George,  Milly,"  he  cried,  "I've  got  you.  As  the  Scotch 
say  (or  are  said  to  say)  I  hae  it  noo.  Old  Crow  was  dotty 
and  my  nose  is  like  Old  Crow's.  So  I'm  dotty,  too." 


OLD  CROW  217 

"I  think,"  said  Amelia,  with  dignity,  "any  specialist,  if 
you  could  only  be  persuaded  to  put  your  case  into  his 
hands,  would  inquire  very  closely  into  family  traits.  And 
you  and  I,  John,  ought  to  help  him  by  tabulating  every 
thing  we  can." 

"Sure!"  said  Raven,  relapsing  into  a  vulgarism  likely 
to  set  her  teeth  on  edge  and  possibly,  in  the  spasm  of  it, 
close  them  momentarily  on  reminiscence.  "I'm  willing  to 
let  you  in  for  all  I  know  about  Old  Crow.  To  tell  the 
truth,  I'm  rather  proud  of  him  myself." 

Charlotte  was  passing  through  the  hall  and  Amelia 
called  to  her. 

"Charlotte,  a  minute,  please.  You  know  our  uncle,  Mr. 
John  Raven." 

"Old  Crow,  Charlotte,"  Raven  reminded  her,  seeing  she 
needed  prompting,  not  yet  guessing  where  the  question 
was  to  lead.  Curiously,  he  thought,  it  was  Milly's  exas 
perating  fate  to  put  everybody  on  guard.  But  it  was 
inevitable.  When  you  had  a  meddler  in  the  family,  you 
never  knew  where  you'd  have  to  head  her  off. 

"What,"  continued  Amelia,  "has  become  of  Uncle 
John's  books?" 

"His  books?"  interrupted  Raven,  himself  off  the  track 
now,  "what  the  deuce  do  you  want  with  Old  Crow's, 
books?" 

"Where  are  they?"  Amelia  continued,  now  turning  to 
him.  "There's  something  somewhere — a  book— I  know  it 
perfectly  well — and  we've  got  to  have  it.  It  came  to  me 
in  the  night?" 

"What  was  it?"  asked  Raven.  "Old  Crow  was  rather  a 
bookish  chap,  I  fancy,  in  a  conventional  way.  I've  got 
some  of  his  stuff  up  in  the  hut :  rather  academic,  the  kind 
daguerreotyped  young  men  with  high  stocks  used  to  study 
by  one  candle.  What  do  you  suspect — a  will,  or  a  love- 


218  OLD  CROW 

letter  slipped  in  behind  a  cover  and  forgotten?  It  can't 
be  a  will.  Old  Crow  didn't  have  anything  to  leave." 

Amelia's  hands  trembled  a  little.  A  brighter  rose  had 
encircled  the  permanent  red  of  her  cheeks.  She  was, 
Raven  saw  with  curiosity,  much  excited. 

"There  was  certainly  a  book,"  she  said,  "a  mottled 
blank  book  a  third  full  of  writing.  It  was  a  sort  of  jour 
nal.  I  was  in  the  room  when  mother  brought  it  from  the 
hut  and'  passed  it  to  father  to  look  at.  He'd  just  come 
down  from  your  room.  You  were  ill,  you  know:  diph 
theria.  Mother  passed  it  to  him  without  a  word,  the  way 
people  do  when  there  are  children  in  the  room.  He  looked 
at  it  and  then  at  her,  and  they  nodded.  I  was  little,  you 
know,  but  I  saw  it  was  important,  and  I  listened.  And 
father  said:  'No,  it  won't  do  to  have  it  lying  around. 
I'll  carry  it  up  attic  and  put  it  in  the  red  chest.'  That's 
what  I  mean,  Charlotte,"  she  continued,  turning  to  Char 
lotte,  who  stood  with  a  frown  of  concentration  on  her 
smooth  forehead.  "You  know  that  old  red  chest,  the  one 
where  uncle's  book  was  put." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Charlotte.     "I  know  the  old  chest." 

"Well,"  said  Amelia  conclusively,  having  made  her 
point,  "then  you  go  up  attic,  will  you,  and  open  the  chest, 
take  out  the  blank  book  and  bring  it  down." 

"Nonsense !"  said  Raven.  "Charlotte's  got  her  hands 
full.  I'll  run  up  by  and  by." 

Charlotte  gave  him  a  serious,  perhaps  a  warning  look, 
he  remembered  afterward,  and  went  out  of  the  room. 

"You  recall  it,  don't  you,"  Amelia  continued,  "how  you 
had  diphtheria  after  Uncle  John's  death,  and  father  had 
it  next  week." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  tasting  the  unchanged  bitterness  of 
an  old  misery. 

That  had  been  one  of  the  points  where  his  life  turned. 


OLD  CROW  219 

His  father  had  taken  the  infection  from  him  and  nearly 
died,  and  the  child  lie  was  then  had  never  been  able  to 
escape  a  shuddering  belief  that  he  might  have  been  guilty 
of  his  father's  death.  That  had  made  him  turn  the  more 
passionately  to  the  task  of  lightening  his  mother's  bur 
den  in  the  wild  anxiety  he  had  caused  her.  Poor  little 
boy,  he  thought,  poor  little  fool!  Making  his  life  a  busi 
ness  of  compensating  somebody  for  something,  and  never, 
until  these  later  years,  even  seeing  the  visible  path  his  own 
feet  should  have  taken.  He  forgot  Amelia  and  showed 
himself  so  absent  that  she  got  huffy  and  fell  into  silence 
and  only  when  he  left  the  room  did  she  remind  him : 

"Don't  forget  the  journal.  You'd  better  run  up  and 
look  for  it  now." 

He  did  go  upstairs,  really  with  an  idea  it  might  be 
best  to  run  over  the  journal  before  Amelia  pounced  on  it 
and  turned  it,  in  some  manner,  to  his  own  undoing.  At 
the  head  of  the  stairs  stood  Charlotte,  waiting.  One  hand 
was  under  her  apron.  She  stepped  silently  into  his  room, 
tacitly  inviting  him  to  follow,  and  brought  out  the  hand 
and  the  mottled  book. 

"Here,"  she  said.  "Here  'tis.  You  lay  it  away  safe 
some'r's.  Don't  seem  to  me  I'd  let  anybody  see  it,  if  I's 
you,  till  you've  been  over  it  yourself." 

Raven,  with  a  nod  of  understanding,  took  the  book,  put 
it  into  his  desk  drawer  and  turned  the  key,  and  Charlotte 
hurried  away  to  her  kitchen.  When  he  went  downstairs 
again,  he  found  Amelia  at  the  open  door.  She  was  all 
an  excitement  of  anticipation. 

"Law,  Milly,"  said  he,  in  the  country  phrasing  he 
loved  to  use  to  her  when  she  was  most  securely  on  her 
high  horse  of  the  cultured  life,  "you  look  as  nervous  as 
<'!.  witch." 

"Where  is  it?"  said  Amelia,  beating  a  tattoo  of  impa- 


220  OLD  CROW 

tience,  with  one  hand,  on  the  door.  "You've  been  up 
attic,  haven't  you?" 

"Bless  you,  no,"  said  Raven.  "I  can't  go  up  attic 
now.  I've  got  to  do  an  errand  for  Charlotte."  This  was 
true.  Nan's  dinner  had  to  be  carried  over.  "You  run  up, 
there's  a  good  girl.  Give  you  something  to  do.  No  !  no  !" 
She  was  turning  toward  the  kitchen.  "Don't  you  go 
bothering  Charlotte.  I  won't  have  it.  Cut  along." 

And  Amelia  did,  in  a  dignified  haste,  to  show  him  how 
journals  were  found,  and  later,  when  the  moment  came, 
Raven  went  with  his  hot  hamper  to  Nan's. 

She  met  him  at  the  door,  no  such  overflowing  Nan  as 
last  night,  but  serenely  practical  and  quite  settled  into 
the  accustomed  comforts  of  her  house. 

"I'm  as  hungry  as  a  bear,"  said  she.  "Come  through 
to  the  kitchen.  I  eat  in  there.  The  only  drawback  to 
this,  Rookie,  is  that  it  takes  it  out  of  Charlotte.  Still, 
it  won't  last  long,  and  I'll  give  her  a  kiss  and  a  blue 
charmeuse.  That  wrould  pay  anybody  for  anything." 

They  unpacked  the  basket  together,  and  Nan,  her  plate 
and  knife  and  fork  ready  on  a  napkin,  began  to  eat. 
Raven  sat  down  at  the  other  end  of  the  table. 

"I  wish  you'd  stay,"  he  said,  watching  her  in  her  pretty 
haste.  "I  don't  mean  here :  over  with  me.  Come  on,  Nan. 
Amelia's  settled  down  for  good.  She  won't  bother  you — 
much.  Anyhow,  you  can  run  off  up  to  the  hut." 

Then  he  remembered  what  other  fugitive  she  might  find 
at  the  hut,  and  saw  she,  too,  remembered.  Her  words 
came  pat  upon  it. 

"The  Tenneys  are  going  to  have  a  prayer-meeting 
Wednesday  night." 

"A  prayer-meeting!"  He  heard  himself  echoing  it  in 
credulously. 


OLD  CROW  281 

"Yes,  and  you're  to  take  me,  Rookie.  Don't  scowl. 
I've  got  to  see  that  man  when  he  worships  his  idols,  and 
you've  got  to  see  him,  too.  His  god  must  be  an  idol: 
burnt  offerings,  that  sort  of  thing.  Perhaps  that's  what 
he's  doing  it  all  for:  offering  her  up,  as  a  kind  of  sacrifice. 
His  wife,  I  mean.  What's  her  name,  Rookie?" 

"Thyatira,"  said  Raven,  and  got  up,  his  mind  suddenly 
dense  to  the  comfortable  picture  of  Nan  and  her  dinner, 
and  went  home. 


XX 


The  next  few  days  went  by,  all  alike  cloudless  and 
uneventful  within  the  house.  Nan  coaxed  Charlotte  into 
bringing  her  over  meat  and  vegetables,  and,  with  a  plea  of 
liking  it,  cooked  them  herself.  Raven  swung  back  and 
forth  between  the  houses,  but  Nan  found  him  silent  and, 
she  decided,  cross.  Every  day  he  went  up  to  the  hut  to 
see  whether  the  fire  had  been  lighted,  and  every  day  found 
the  place  in  its  chilly  order.  It  seemed  to  him  as  if  the 
whole  tragic  background  against  which  Tira  had  been 
moving  had  been  wiped  away  by  some  wide  sweeping 
sponge  of  oblivion,  as  if  he  had  dreamed  the  story  or  at 
least  its  importance  in  his  own  life,  as  if  Nan  had  always 
been  living  alone  in  her  house,  and  Amelia,  tied  up  in 
Charlotte's  aprons,  her  lips  compressed  in  implacable 
resolution,  always  going  through  trunks  in  the  attic, 
searching  for  a  mottled  book.  He  had  no  compunction 
over  Amelia.  Let  her  search,  he  thought,  when  Charlotte 
came  to  him  with  a  worried  brow  and  asked  if  he  didn't 
think  he  could  put  it  somewheres  in  sight,  so's  't  she  should 
know  'twas  no  use.  Do  her  good.  If  she  didn't  like  it 
she  could  go  back  to  her  clubs  and  her  eugenics  and  her 
Freudians.  And  when  the  evening  of  the  prayer-meeting 
came  he  looked  out  at  the  brilliant  weather,  judged  that 
the  immediate  region  might  seize  upon  it  as  an  excuse  for 
sleigh-riding,  and  was  returning  to  his  book  for  a  brief 
minute  more,  when  Amelia  called  from  the  window: 


OLD  CROW 

"Three  sleighs  !      Where  can  they  be  going?" 

"Oh,"  said  Raven,  without  raising  his  eves  from  the 
page,  "sleighing,  most  likely." 

But  the  minute  she  left  the  window,  he  put  down  his 
book,  got  his  hat  and  coat  from  the  hall,  and  went  out 
through  the  kitchen  where  Charlotte  was  sponging  bread. 

"Going  to  the  meeting?"  he  asked  her. 

"No,"  said  Charlotte,  absorbedly  dissolving  her  yeast 

cake.  "I  never  take  much  stock  in '  There  she 

paused,  lest  she  might  be  uncharitably  expansive,  and 
found  refuge  in  Jerry.  "He  says  Israel  Tenney  ain't  so 
much  of  a  man,  when  all's  said  an'  done,  an'  don't  seem  as 
if  he  could  stan'  seein'  him  on  his  knees.  But  there!" 

Raven  went  on  through  the  shed  and  up  the  road,  to 
Nan's.  She  had  seen  him  from  the  window  and  came  down 
the  path. 

"Knew  I'd  come,  did  you?"  he  grumbled. 

"Yes,"  said  Nan.     "We'd  really  better  go." 

Raven  hated  it  all,  out  of  his  element  as  he  was,  going 
to  spy  on  Tenney  and  hear  him  pray.  What  other  reason 
was  there?  He  and  Nan  simply  wanted  to  search  out  the 
reactions  in  Tenney's  spiritual  insides  in  order  to  defeat 
him  the  more  neatly. 

The  house  was  brightly  lighted  downstairs.  Six  or 
eight  sleighs  stood  in  the  shelter  of  the  long  open  shed  at 
right  angles  to  the  barn.  The  horses  had  been  taken  in 
and  blanketed.  When  Raven  and  Nan  arrived,  no  one 
else  was  outside,  and  he  was  about  to  knock  when  Nan, 
who  remembered  the  ways  of  neighborhood  prayer-meet 
ings,  opened  the  door  and  stepped  in.  Men  and  women 
were  seated  in  a  couple  of  rows  about  the  walls  of  the 
two  front  rooms,  and  Tenney  stood  in  the  square  entry 
beside  a  table  supplied  with  a  hymn-book,  a  Bible,  and  a 


OLD  CROW 

lamp.  He  had  the  unfamiliar  aspect  of  a  man  reduced  to 
discomfort  of  mind  by  the  strictures  of  a  Sunday  suit. 
His  eyes  were  burning  and  his  mouth  compressed.  What 
did  they  mean,  that  passion  of  the  distended  pupil,  that 
line  of  tightened  lip?  Was  it  the  excitement  of  leader 
ship,  the  responsibility  of  being  uin  charge"  of  the  solemn 
convention  of  prayer-meeting?  It  was  the  face,  Nan 
thought,  of  one  who  knew  the  purposes  of  God  from  the 
first  word  of  creation  to  the  last,  and  meant  to  enforce 
them  by  every  mastery  known  to  man:  persuasion,  rage, 
and  cruelty.  She  gave  him  a  good  evening  and  he  jerked 
his  head  slightly  in  response.  The  occasion  was  evidently 
too  far  out  of  the  common  to  admit  of  ordinary  greetings. 
A  man  and  woman  just  inside  the  doorway  of  the  front 
room  moved  along,  and  signed  Raven  and  Nan  to  take 
their  vacated  seats.  As  soon  as  they  were  settled  Tenney 
began  to  "lead  in  prayer,"  and  Raven,  his  mind  straying 
from  the  words  as  negligible  and  only  likely  to  increase 
his  aversion  to  the  man,  sat  studying  the  furnishings  of 
the  room,  a  typical  one,  like  all  the  parlors  of  the  region 
from  the  time  of  his  boyhood  to  that  of  his  father  and  Old 
Crow.  There  was  the  center  table  with  the  album  and 
three  red  volumes  of  Keepsakes  and  Garlands,  a  green 
worsted  mat,  hopefully  designed  to  imitate  moss,  and  on 
the  depression  in  its  center  the  astral  lamp.  On  the  wall 
opposite  were  pictures  of  Tenney's  father  and  mother, 
painful  enlargements  from  stiff  photographs,  and  on  the 
neighboring  wall  a  glazed  framing  of  wax  flowers  and  a 
hair  wreath.  The  furniture  was  black  walnut  upholstered 
with  horsehair.  Tenney  was  of  the  more  prosperous  line 
of  farmers.  And  yet  he  had  not  begun  so.  All  this  rep 
resented  the  pathetic  ideal  of  one  who  toiled  and  saved 
and  bought  after  the  fashion  of  his  type. 


OLD  CROW  225 

Raven's  eyes  strayed  to  the  faces  about  him :  these  were 
the  younger  set,  boys  and  girls  from  sixteen  to  twenty. 
The  first  two  or  three  had,  by  chance  perhaps,  dropped 
into  this  room  and  the  rest  gravitated  shyly  to  it.  There 
was  always  a  line  of  cleavage  at  prayer-meeting,  as  at  teas 
and  "socials,"  between  old  and  young.  Raven  was  glad 
he  had  chosen  the  room  at  random.  He  liked  the  atmos 
phere  of  half-awed,  half-tittering  youth.  They  were 
always  on  the  verge,  always  ready  to  find  hilarity  in  unto 
ward  circumstance,  and  yet  trained  to  a  respect  for  meet 
ing,  doing  their  conventional  best.  What  hard  red  cheeks 
there  were,  what  great  brown  hands  of  boys,  awkwardly 
holding  hats,  and  yet,  taken  into  the  open,  how  unerringly 
they  gripped  the  tasks  that  fell  to  them.  All  of  them, 
boys  and  girls  alike,  were  staring  at  him  and  Nan:  at 
Nan  with  a  frank  admiration,  the  girls  perhaps  with  envy. 
At  the  corner  of  the  room  corresponding  to  his  own,  two 
chairs  had  been  left  vacant,  and  when  his  eyes  came  to 
them  he  saw  a  blue  scarf  depending  from  the  back  of  one ; 
it  had  been  dropped  when  the  occupant  of  the  chair 
had  left  it.  It  was  Tira's  chair,  and  Tira  herself  appeared 
from  the  door  opposite,  leading  from  the  kitchen,  crossed 
the  room,  took  the  scarf  and  wrapped  it  about  her 
shoulders  and  sat  down.  She  had  been  called  out,  perhaps 
in  response  to  a  cry  from  the  child  who  seemed  to  be  the 
center  of  commotion  in  this  house,  though  so  mysteriously 
inactive.  Raven  felt  the  blood  mounting  to  his  face,  she 
was  so  movingly  beautiful  in  this  scene  of  honest  but 
unlovely  mediocrity.  Even  her  walk  across  the  room,  un 
conscious  of  herself,  yet  with  the  rhythmic  step  of  high 
processionals — how  strange  a  part  she  was  of  this  New 
England  picture  !  He  could  not  see  her  now,  without  turn 
ing,  and  tried  to  summon  his  mind  home  from  her,  to  fix 


226  OLD  CROW 

it  on  Tenney,  who,  having  finished  his  prayer,  was  calling 
on  one  and  another,  with  an  unction  that  seemed  merely 
a  rejoicing  tyranny,  for  testimony.  It  was  a  scene  of 
tension.  Church  members  were  timid  before  the  ordeal 
of  experience  or  pleading,  and  the  unconverted  were 
strained  to  the  verge  of  hysteria  over  a  prospect  of 
being  haled  into  the  open  and  prayed  for.  Neither  Raven 
nor  Nan  knew  how  unpopular  Tenney  had  become,  because 
he  could  not  enter  the  conventional  limits  of  a  prayer- 
meeting  without  turning  it  into  something  too  tense,  too 
exciting,  the  atmosphere  of  the  revival.  Yet,  though  his 
fellow  Christians  blamed  him  for  it,  they  sought  it  like  a 
drug.  He  played  on  their  unwilling  nerves  and  they  ran 
to  be  played  on.  He  was  their  opera,  their  jazz.  Breath 
came  faster  and  eyes  shone.  The  likelihood  of  a  hysterical 
giggle  was  imminent,  and  some  couples,  safely  out  of  range 
of  Tenney's  gaze,  were  "holding  hands"  and  mentally 
shuddering  at  their  own  temerity. 

Now  he  was  telling  his  own  religious  experience,  with  a 
mounting  fervor  ready  to  froth  over  into  frenzy.  Raven, 
turning  slightly,  regarded  him  with  a  cold  dislike.  This 
was  the  voice  that  had  echoed  through  the  woods  that  day 
when  Tira  stood,  her  baby  in  her  arms,  in  what  chill  of 
fear  Raven  believed  he  knew.  Tenney  went  on  lashing  him 
self  into  the  ecstasy  of  his  emotional  debauch.  His  eyes 
glittered.  He  was  happy,  he  asserted,  because  he  had 
found  salvation.  His  conversion  was  akin  to  that  of  Saul. 
To  his  immense  spiritual  egotism,  Raven  concluded, 
nothing  short  of  a  story  colossally  dramatic  would  serve- 
He  had  been  a  sinner,  perhaps  not  as  to  works  but  faith. 
He  had  kept  the  commandments,  all  but  one.  Had  he 
loved  the  Lord  his  God  with  all  his  heart,  all  his  soul,  all 
his  might?  No:  for  he  had  not  accepted  the  sacrifice  the 


OLD  CROW  227 

Lord  God  had  prepared  for  him,  of  His  only  Son.  That 
Son  of  God  had  been  with  him  everywhere,  in  his  down- 
sittings  and  his  uprisings,  as  He  was  with  every  man  and 
woman  on  earth.  But,  like  other  sinful  men  and  women, 
he  had  not  seen  Him.  He  had  not  felt  Him.  But  He  was 
there.  And  one  day  he  was  hoeing  in  the  field  and  a  voice 
at  his  side  asked:  "Why  persecutest  thou  me?"  He 

looked  up  and  saw Here  he  paused  dramatically, 

though  Raven  concluded  it  was  simply  because  he  found 
himself  at  a  loss  to  go  on.  He  had  appropriated  the 
story,  but  he  was  superstitiously  afraid  to  embroider  it. 
For  he  (Raven  gave  him  that  credit)  honestly  believed 
in  his  self-evolved  God. 

'"And  then,"  said  Tenney,  in  a  broken  voice,  tears  trick 
ling  down  his  cheeks,  "the  voice  said  to  me:  'Go  ye  out 
and  preach  the  gospel.' ' 

The  front  door  opened  and  a  little  answering  breeze 
flickered  in  the  flame  of  the  lamp.  A  girl  near  Nan,  her 
nerves  on  edge,  gave  a  cry.  A  man  stepped  in  and  closed 
the  door  behind  him.  He  was  a  figure  of  fashion  evolved 
from  cheap  models  and  flashy  materials.  Tall,  quick  in 
his  movements,  as  if  he  found  life  a  perpetual  dance  and 
self-consciously  adapted  himself  to  it,  with  mocking  blue 
eyes,  red  hair  and  a  long  nose  bent  slightly  to  one  side, 
he  was,  in  every  line  and  act,  vulgar,  and  yet  so  arrogantly 
bent  on  pleasing  that  you  unconsciously  had  to  acknowl 
edge  his  intention  and  refrain  from  turning  your  back  on 
him.  He  looked  at  Tenney  in  a  calculated  good  humor, 
nodded,  had  his  great  coat  off  with  a  quick  gesture,  and 
slung  it  over  his  arm.  Then  he  stepped  past  Tenney, 
who  stood  petrified  as  if  he  saw  the  risen  dead,  and  into 
the  room.  This  was  Eugene  Martin.  He  seemed  not  to 
be  in  the  least  subdued  to  the  accepted  rules  of  prayer- 


228  OLD  CROW 

meeting,  but  nodded  and  smiled  impartially,  and,  as  if  he 
had  flashed  that  look  about  for  the  one  niche  waiting  for 
him,  stepped  lightly  over  to  Tira's  corner  and  took  the 
chair  at  her  side.  Raven,  from  the  tragic  change  in  Ten- 
ney's  face,  knew  who  he  was  and  bent  forward  to  see  what 
Tira's  eyes  would  tell.  She  was,  it  seemed,  frozen  into 
endurance.  Martin,  in  seating  himself,  had  given  her  a 
cordial  good  evening.  She  did  not  answer,  nor  did  she 
look  at  him.  Her  pale  lips  did  not  move.  Nor  did  she, 
on  the  other  hand,  withdraw  from  him.  The  chairs  had 
been  pushed  close,  and,  as  she  sat  upright,  scarcely  mov 
ing  a  muscle  with  her  breath,  the  blue  scarf  touched  his 
shoulder.  Raven  withdrew  his  gaze,  not  to  make  the 
moment  in  any  sense  conspicuous,  and,  feeling  the  silence, 
turned  to  Tenney  to  see  if  his  leadership  could  surmount 
this  base  assault.  The  assault  was  premeditated.  The 
gay  insolence  of  the  man's  manner  told  him  that.  Tenney 
stood  there  silent,  flaccid,  a  hand  on  the  casing  of  the 
door.  Every  vestige  of  religious  excitement  had  left  his 
face.  His  overthrow  was  complete,  and  Raven,  judging 
how  Martin  must  rejoice,  was  for  the  moment  almost  as 
sorry  for  Tenney  as  for  his  wife.  The  little  disturbance 
had  lasted  only  a  moment,  but  now  all  eyes  wrere  turning 
on  Tenney,  who  had  ceased  to  "lead."  In  another  minute 
the  eyes  would  be  curious,  the  silence  would  be  felt.  As 
Raven  wondered  what  would  break  the  evil  spell,  Nan's 
voice  came  out  clear,  untinged  by  the  prevailing  somber- 
ness,  warm  with  the  confidence  of  youth : 

"Can't  we  sing  one  of  the  nice  old  hymns  ?  Coronation  ! 
That's  got  such  a  swing  to  it." 

She  began  it,  and  the  young  voices  broke  in  pell-mell 
after  her  like  a  joyous  crowd,  seeing  a  vine-clad  proces 
sion,  and  losing  no  time  in  joining  for  fear  of  losing  step. 


OLD  CROW  229 

Raven  knew  perfectly  well  the  great  old  hymn  was  no 
matter  for  a  passionately  remorseful,  sin-laden  meeting  Of 
this  sort.  Nan  knew  it,  too.  He  was  sure  she  had  not 
ventured  it  for  the  protection  of  Tira.  No  one  had  ever 
told  Nan  about  the  man  with  the  devil  in  him  who  "looked 
up  kinder  droll."  But  she  could  see  the  tide  of  human 
emotion  had  better  be  turned  to  the  glorification  of  God 
than  to  the  abasement  of  man.  Raven,  in  the  swell  of  it, 
put  his  lips  to  her  ear  and  whispered: 

"I'm  going  to  ask  you  to  change  your  seat." 

She  gave  no  sign  of  having  heard,  but  sang  on,  in  a 
delightful  volume,  to  "Crown  Him  Lord  of  all."  The 
moment  the  last  note  died,  Raven  came  to  his  feet.  He 
addressed  Tenney : 

"One  minute.     There's  a  draught  here  by  the  door." 

He  went  over  to  Martin,  Nan  following : 

"Do  you  mind  sitting  by  the  door?"  he  asked  the  man. 
"There's  a  good  deal  of  a  draught." 

Martin,  his  surprised  look  at  Nan  changing  to  a  ready 
gallantry,  got  up  at  once. 

"Anything,"  said  he,  "to  oblige  a  lady." 

Nan  sat  down  and  Raven  and  Martin  took  the  seats  by 
the  door.  There,  too,  Martin  had  advantage  of  a  sort. 
He  could  stare  down  Tenney  at  short  range,  and  this  he 
did  with  a  broad  smile.  Tenney,  Raven  concluded,  was 
down  and  out.  His  comb  was  cut.  Whatever  passions 
might  stir  in  him  later — however,  in  reviewing  the  scene, 
he  might  rage  over  the  disturber  of  his  peace — now  his 
spiritual  leadership  had  passed  from  him  and  the  prayer- 
meeting  itself  was  quashed.  An  air  of  curiosity  hung 
over  it.  Two  or  three  of  the  older  men  and  women  in  the 
other  room  offered  testimony  and  one  man,  the  old  clock- 
mender  from  the  other  side  of  the  mountain,  who  swore 


230  OLD  CROW 

with  a  free  tongue  about  his  secular  affairs,  but  always 
wept  when  he  went  through  the  observance  he  called 
approaching  the  throne,  knelt  and  prayed  in  a  high  voice 
through  sobs.  This  lightened  the  atmosphere.  No  one 
ever  regarded  this  performance  seriously.  He  was  the 
comic  relief.  On  his  Amen,  Nan  (blessed  Nan!  thought 
Raven)  proposed: 

"Let's  sing  again." 

"No !"  said  Tenney.  He  had  got  back  his  self-asser- 
tiveness.  Raven  could  guess  his  jealous  anger,  the  tide  of 
fury  coming,  flooding  the  stagnant  marshes  of  his  soul. 
"I  want  to  hear  one  more  testimony.  Thyatira  Tenney, 
get  up  and  tell  what  God  has  done  for  you." 

Tira  gave  a  start  so  violent  that  the  blue  scarf  fell 
from  her  shoulders  and  one  end  of  it  lay  over  Nan's  arm. 
She  did  get  up.  She  rose  slowly  and  stood  there 
looking  straight  before  her,  eyes  wide  and  dark,  her  hands 
clasped.  Her  stiff  lips  moved.  She  did  piteously,  Raven 
saw,  try  to  speak.  But  she  could  not  manage  it  and  after 
the  long  moment  she  sank  back  into  her  seat.  Nan  placed 
the  blue  scarf  about  her  shoulders,  carefully,  as  if  the 
quiet  concern  of  doing  it  might  tell  the  woman  something 
— that  she  was  companioned,  understood — and,  one  hand 
on  the  knot  of  Tira's  clasped  fingers,  began  to  sing.  She 
sang  the  Doxology,  and  after  that,  through  unbreakable 
custom,  the  meeting  wras  over  and  you  had  to  go  home. 
Men  and  women  came  to  their  feet,  there  were  greetings 
and  good  nights  and  about  Nan  gathered  a  group  of  those 
who  remembered  her.  But  she  kept  her  left  hand  on 
Tira's,  and  after  the  others  had  gone  she  said  something 
quickly  to  the  woman  who  stood,  looking  dead  tired, 
uttering  mechanical  good  nights.  Martin,  with  a  jovial 
good  night  to  Tenney,  had  hurried  off  at  once. 


OLD  CROW 

"See  you  later,"  he  called  back  to  him  at  the  door,  and 
Tenney  looked  after  him  with  the  livid  concentration  of  a 
man  who  sends  his  curse  forward  to  warn  where  it  is  not 
yet  time  for  a  blow.  A  laughing  group  followed  Mar 
tin.  There  were  girls  who,  horrified  at  the  implications 
that  hung  about  his  name,  were  yet  swayed  by  his  dash 
ing  gallantry,  and  young  men  who  sulkily  held  the  girls 
back,  swearing  under  their  breath.  Tira  broke  loose  from 
Nan  and  went,  fast  as  running  water,  through  the  room, 
to  the  back  of  the  house.  Raven  made  no  pretense  of  say 
ing  good  night  to  Tenney.  He  forgot  it,  forgot  Tenney, 
save  as  an  element  of  danger  to  be  dealt  with  later.  On 
the  doorstep  he  stopped  with  Nan,  in  the  seclusion  of  the 
moment  while  the  others  were  bringing  out  horses  and 
putting  them  into  the  sleighs. 

"We  can't  leave  her  here  with  him,"  he  said. 

"What  was  the  matter?"  Nan  returned  as  quickly. 
"What  happened?  That  man?" 

"Yes.  The  one  he's  jealous  of.  We  can't  leave  her 
here." 

"No  use,"  said  Nan.  "She  won't  go.  I  asked  her,  told 
her  I  was  living  over  at  the  house  alone,  wanted  company. 
No  use.  She  wouldn't  go." 

"She  must  go." 

"She  won't,  I  tell  you.  Then  I  asked  if  she'd  let  me 
stay  over  here  and  she  said  no.  She  said " 

"What?"  urged  Raven  when  she  stopped. 

"I  almost  can't  tell,  it's  so  pathetic.  Just  a  word — 
three  words :  'You  don't  know.'  Then  she  stopped.  Just 
that :  'You  don't  know.'  " 

Raven  gave  a  little  sound  she  could  not  bear,  a  breath, 
a  curse — what  was  it?  Anyway,  the  breaking  impatience 
of  a  helpless  man.  He  did  not  stir.  He  meant,  she  saw, 


232  OLD  CROW 

to  stay  there,  doggedly  stay,  on  the  step,  to  await  what 
happened.  She  put  her  hand  through  his  arm. 

"Come,"  she  said  authoritatively,  "let's  walk  up  the 
road  and  drop  in  again  when  they've  all  gone.  It's  no 
use  staying  now." 

That,  he  saw,  was  wise,  and  they  went  out  into  the  road, 
waited  a  moment  for  the  sleighs  just  starting,  and  then 
walked  away  from  home.  Some  of  the  people  were  sing 
ing  "camp-meeting  hymns,"  and  there  was  one  daring 
burst  of  "Good  night,  ladies,"  and  a  chorused  laugh. 
Prayer-meeting  at  Tenney's  was  not,  Raven  concluded, 
regarded  much  more  seriously  than  Charlotte  had  fore 
seen.  The  bells  jingled  off  into  the  distance.  The  horses 
were  bent  on  home.  As  if  the  sound  only  had  torn  up  the 
night  into  shreds  of  commotion,  so  now  the  bits  of  silence 
drew  together  into  a  web  and  the  wreb  covered  them.  Nan, 
in  spite  of  the  perplexed  question  of  Tira,  could  have 
settled  under  the  web,  there  with  Raven,  as  under  wings. 
But  he  was  hot  with  impatience.  They  had  gone  half  a 
mile  perhaps,  when  he  stopped. 

"Come  back,"  he  said.     "I've  got  to  know." 

Nan  turned  with  him  and  they  went  on  in  silence  but 
very  fast.  Once  or  twice  she  was  about  asking  him  not 
to  take  such  long  steps,  but  she  set  her  teeth  and  swung 
forward.  In  front  of  Tenney's  they  stopped.  The  rooms 
were  lighted.  The  house  was  still.  Raven  drew  a  deep 
breath.  What  he  had  expected  he  did  not  know,  whether 
calls  for  help  or  Tenney's  voice  of  the  woods  shouting, 
"Hullo !"  This,  at  any  rate,  was  a  reprieve. 

"Come  on,"  he  said.  "I'll  take  you  home  and  then 
come  back." 

Again  Nan  stepped  out  in  time.  No  use,  she  thought, 
to  beg  him  to  let  her  come,  too.  But  she  could  come  back. 


OLD  CROW  233 

Women  were  useful,  she  knew,  with  their  implied  terrors 
and  fragility,  in  holding  up  certain  sorts  of  horror.  Nan 
was  willing  to  fight,  if  need  were,  with  all  the  weapons  of 
her  sex.  In  the  road  in  front  of  her  own  house,  was  Char 
lotte,  waiting  for  them.  Nan  left  Raven,  put  a  hand  on 
Charlotte's  arm,  and  called  her  "Ducky." 

"You  won't  come  in?"  she  said  to  Raven.  "Don't  you 
think  you'd  better.  Half  an  hour  or  so?" 

"Not  a  minute,"  said  Raven.     "Good  night." 

He  left  them  and  after  a  few  striding  steps  was  aware  of 
Charlotte,  calling  him.  She  came  up  and  spoke  his  name. 

"I've  just  met  that  woman." 

"What  woman?"  he  asked  impatiently. 

"Tira  Tenney.     With  the  baby.     This  time  o  night." 

"Where?" 

"Front  o'  the  house,  just  as  I  come  out." 

"Then  she  was  coming  there,"  he  burst  forth.  "Too 
bad!  too  bad!  Didn't  you  know  that?  Didn't  you  ask 
her  in?" 

"Yes,"  said  Charlotte,  "I  asked  her  in  an'  she  said  no, 
she  was  goin'  down  along.  An'  I  stood  an'  watched  her 
an'  she  turned  off  up  the  rise  into  the  woods." 

So  it  had  begun,  the  terror,  the  flight.  She  was  going 
to  the  hut  and,  for  some  reason,  not  the  back  way. 

"There's  somethin'  'tain't  right,"  Charlotte  was  begin 
ning,  but  he  seized  her  wrist  and  held  it.  To  keep  her 
attention,  or  to  feel  the  touch  of  something  kindly  and 
warm  ? 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "something's  wrong.  Don't  tell,  Char 
lotte.  Not  a  word — not  to  Nan  or  Jerry  or — above  all 
not  to  Tenney.  I'll  see  to  it." 

He  left  her  and  hurried  loping  along  the  road,  almost 
at  a  run,  and  Charlotte  went  in  to  Nan. 


XXI 

Raven  passed  his  house  and  turned  into  the  wood  road. 
There  he  did  not  slacken,  but  took  the  rise  at  a  great  gait. 
He  was  at  the  hut  a  moment  after  Tira :  she  had  had  time 
for  neither  light  nor  fire. 

"It's  Raven,"  he  called.  She  did  not  come,  and  he 
added:  "I'm  alone.  Let  me  in." 

Waiting  there  at  the  door,  he  had  time  to  note  the  still 
ness  of  the  woods,  the  creak  of  a  branch  now  and  then, 
and  the  half-drawn  sigh  from  the  breeze  you  hardly  felt. 
At  the  instant  of  his  beginning  to  wonder  whether  she 
might  have  fallen  there  from  a  hurt  or  whether  she  was 
even  terrified  of  him,  he  heard  the  sound  of  the  key  and 
the  door  opened.  He  stepped  in  and  her  hand  was  at 
once  on  the  key.  She  turned  it  and  melted  noiselessly  into 
the  dark  of  the  room,  and  he  followed  her. 

"No  fire !"  he  reproached  her,  or  perhaps  himself,  for  it 
seemed,  in  the  poignancy  of  his  tenderness,  as  if  he  should 
have  had  it  burning  night  and  day.  He  set  a  match  to  the 
kindling  and  the  flame  answered  it.  She  had  taken  one  of 
the  chairs  at  the  hearth  and  he  saw,  in  the  leaping  light, 
that  she  had  put  the  child  on  the  couch  and  covered  him. 
She  was  shuddering  all  over,  shaking  horribly,  even  her 
lips,  and  he  went  into  the  bedroom,  came  back  with  a 
blanket  and  wrapped  it  about  her.  She  held  it  close,  in 
that  humble  way  she  had  of  trying  to  spare  him  trouble, 
indeed  to  make  no  confusion  in  the  world  she  found  so  de- 

234 


OLD  CROW 

ranged  already.  He  remembered  the  chartreuse  she  had 
once  refused  and  took  it  down  from  the  high  cupboard, 
poured  a  little  and  set  the  glass  in  her  shaking  hand,  and, 
when  the  muscles  did  not  answer,  put  it  to  her  lips. 

"It  won't  hurt  you,"  he  said.     "Down  it." 

She  drank,  and  the  kindly  fire  of  it  warmed  her.  She 
looked  up  at  him,  and  what  she  said  was  more  unexpected 
than  anything  he  could  have  imagined: 

"Do  you  believe  it?" 

"Believe  what?" 

He  could  only  guess  she  meant  something  connected 
with  Tenney's  madness  of  suspicion  and  the  devil  of  a  man. 

"What  he  said."  She  was  looking  at  him  with  inten 
sity,  as  if  life  and  death  lay  in  his  answer.  "He  said  He 
was  there  to-night,  there  in  the  room.  Do  you  believe 
that?" 

"Who  was  there?"  Raven  prompted  her,  and  the  imme 
diate  reply  staggered  him. 

"Jesus  Christ." 

He  temporized. 

"I've  no  doubt  he  believed  it,"  he  said,  unwilling  to 
speak  Tenney's  name.  It  was  doubly  hateful  to  him  at 
the  moment  of  her  being  so  patently  undone.  He  could 
only  think  she  was  trying  to  reconcile  the  ugly  contrast 
between  her  husband's  expressed  faith  and  his  insane 
action.  "I'm  sure  he  thought  so." 

"That  ain't  what  I  mean,"  she  hesitated,  and  he  began 
to  see  how  her  mind  was  striving  in  an  anguish  of  interro 
gation.  "What  he  thinks — that's  neither  here  nor  there. 
What  I  want  to  know  is  whether  it's  so.  If  there's  Some 
body" — she  clasped  her  hands  on  her  knees  and  looked 
up  at  him,  mutely  imploring  him  who  was  so  wise  in  books 
and  life  to  help  her  striving  mind — "if  there's  Somebody 


236  OLD  CROW 

that  cares — that  died  over  it,  He  cared  so  much — if  He's 
round  here  everywhere — if  He  sees  it  all — an'  feels  ter 
rible,  same  as  we  do  ourselves — why,  then  it's  different." 

"What's  different?"  Raven  asked,  out  of  his  fog. 

She  was  demanding  something  of  him  and  he  felt,  in  a 
sickness  of  despair,  that  it  was  something  he  couldn't  give 
her  because  he  hadn't  it  himself.  Tenney  could  read  her 
the  alphabet  of  comfort,  though  he  was  piling  on  her 
those  horrors  of  persecution  that  made  her  hungry  for  it. 

"Why,"  she  said,  and  the  light  and  a  bloom  of  some 
thing  ineffable  swept  over  her  face,  changing  its  tragic 
mystery  from  the  somberness  of  the  Fates  to  the  imagined 
youthful  glory  of  the  angels,  "if  He's  here  all  the  time,  if 
He's  in  the  room  when  things  happen  to  us,  an'  wishes  He 
could  stop  it  an'  can't  because" — again  her  mind  labored 
and  she  saw  she  had  come  up  against  the  mysterious  nega 
tives  of  destiny — "anyways,  He  would  if  He  could — an' 
He  knows  how  we  feel  inside  when  we  feel  the  worst,  an' 

cares,  cares  same  as "  here  she  was  inarticulate.  But 

she  turned  for  an  instant  toward  the  couch  where  the  child 
lay,-  and  her  face  was  the  mother  face.  She  meant,  he 
knew,  as  she  cared  for  her  child.  "Why,  then,"  she  con 
tinued,  "there  wouldn't  be  anything  to  fret  about,  ever. 
You  never'd  be  afraid,  not  if  you  was  killed,  you  wouldn't. 
You'd  know  there  was  Somebody  in  the  room." 

This  was  the  most  deeply  considered  speech  of  her 
whole  life.  The  last  words,  ingenuous  as  a  child's  uncon 
scious  betrayal,  tore  at  him  as,  he  suddenly  thought,  it 
would  be  if  he  saw  a  child  tortured  and  in  fear:  as  if  he 
saw  Nan.  They  told  him  how  desperately  lonesome  and 
undefended  she  had  felt. 

"An'  don't  you  see,"  she  concluded,  with  the  bright 
ness  of  happy  discovery,  "even  if  you  was  killed,  what 


OLD  CROW  237 

harm  would  it  do  you?  He'd  be  waitin'.  You'd  go  with 
Him.  Wherever  it  is  He  lives,  you'd  go." 

Raven  turned  abruptly,  walked  to  a  window  and  stood 
there  looking  into  the  dark.  The  challenge  of  her  face 
was  impossible  to  bear.  Suppose  she  asked  him  again  if 
he  believed  it?  Did  he  believe  in  a  God  made  man?  By 
no  means.  He  believed  in  one  God,  benevolent,  he  had 
once  assumed,  but  in  these  latter  years  too  well  hidden 
behind  His  cloud  for  man  to  say.  Did  the  old  story  of  a 
miraculous  birth  and  an  atonement  move  him  even  to  a 
desire  to  believe?  It  repelled  him  rather?  What,  to  his 
honest  apprehension,  was  the  God  made  man?  An  exem 
plar,  a  light  upon  the  path  of  duty,  as  others  also  had 
been.  Had  the  world  gone  wrong,  escaped  from  its  mys 
terious  Maker,  and  did  it  need  to  be  redeemed  by  any 
such  dramatic  remedy?  No,  his  God,  the  God  who  made, 
could  not  botch  a  job  and  be  disconcerted  at  the  continu 
ing  bad  results  of  His  handiwork.  The  only  doubt  about 
his  God  was  whether  He  was  in  any  degree  benevolent. 
When  he  reflected  that  He  had  made  a  world  full  to  the 
brim  of  its  cup  of  bitterness,  he  sometimes,  nowadays, 
thought  not.  All  this  swept  through  his  mind  in  a  race  of 
thoughts  that  had  run  on  that  course  before,  and  again 
he  heard  her  and  knew  she  was  pulling  him  back  to  the 
actual  issue  as  it  touched  herself. 

"You  tell  me,"  she  was  calling  him.  Her  voice  insisted. 
He  did  not  turn,  but  he  knew  her  face  insisted  even  more 
commandingly.  "You  know.  There's  nothin'  you  don't 
know.  Is  it  true?" 

Nothing  he  didn't  know !  The  irony  of  that  was  so  in 
nocently  piercing  that  he  almost  broke  into  a  laugh.  Nan 
was  right  then.  Tira  did  regard  him,  if  not  as  an  arch 
angel,  as  something  scarcely  less  authoritative.  He 


238  OLD  CROW 

turned  and  went  back  to  the  fire,  threw  on  an  armful  of 
sticks,  and  stood  looking  into  the  blaze. 

"What  makes  you  say  that?"  he  asked  her.  "What 
makes  you  think  I  know?" 

"Why,"  said  she,  in  a  patent  surprise,  "  'course  you 
know.  I've  always  heard  about  you,  writin'  books  an'  all. 
An'  that's  the  kind  you  be,  too.  You're" — she  paused  to 
marshal  her  few  words  and  ended  in  an  awed  tone — 
"you're  that  way,  too.  When  folks  are  in  trouble,  you're 
so  sorry  it  'most  kills  you." 

This  was  a  blow  staggering  enough  to  hit  his  actual 
heart  and  stop  it  for  a  beat.  What  if  he  should  say  to 
her :  "Yes,  I  do  care.  I  care  when  you  are  hurt.  I  don't 
know  about  the  God  made  man,  but  isn't  my  caring  enough 
for  you?" 

Then  bitter  certainties  cut  in  and  told  him  it  wouldn't 
do.  She  had  learned  her  world  lesson  too  terribly  well. 
It  would  be  only  another  case  of  man's  pursuing,  promis 
ing — what  had  they  promised  in  the  past?  And  after 
all,  he  thought  recklessly,  what  did  the  private  honor 
of  his  testifying  yes  or  no  amount  to  anyway?  What 
moral  conceit !  To  save  his  own  impeccable  soul  by  deny 
ing  a  woman  the  one  consolation  that  would  save  her 
reason. 

"Yes,  Tira,"  he  said  quietly,  and  did  not  know  he  had 
used  her  name,  "it's  all  true." 

She  gave  a  little  sound,  half  sob,  half  ecstatic  breath, 
and  he  saw  she  had  not  been  sure  he  would  yield  her  the 
bright  jewel  she  had  begged  of  him. 

"True !"  she  said,  in  the  low  tone  of  an  almost  somno 
lently  brooding  calm.  "All  of  it!  Everywhere!" 

"Yes,"  said  Raven  steadily,  "everywhere." 

"Over  there  where  He  was  born,  here !"     That  seemed 


OLD  CROW  239 

to  amaze  her  to  a  glory  of  belief.     "Why,  if  He's  every 
where,  He's  here,  too." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.  He  loved  his  task  now.  He  was 
putting  her  sorrows  to  sleep.  "He's  here,  too." 

At  that  moment,  incredibly,  it  seemed  to  him  that  a 
difference  pervaded  the  place,  or  at  least  that  his  eyes 
had  been  opened  to  a  something  unsuspected,  dwelling  in 
all  things.  Did  he,  his  unchanged  mind  asked  him, 
actually  believe  what  he  had  not  believed  before?  No,  the 
inner  core  of  him  signaled  back  to  his  mind.  His  belief 
had  not  changed.  Yet  indubitably  something  had  hap 
pened  and  happened  blessedly,  for  it  brought  her  peace. 
Tira  gave  a  little  laugh,  a  child's  laugh  of  surprised  con 
tent.  He  glanced  at  her.  She  was  looking  into  the  fire 
and  the  haggardness  of  her  face  had  softened.  It  was 
even,  under  the  warmth  of  the  flames  and  her  own  inner 
delight,  absorbed  and  dreamy.  And  Raven  knew  he  must 
wake  her,  and,  he  hoped,  without  flawing  the  dream,  to 
present  action. 

"Now,"  he  said,  "I  want  you  to  come  with  me  down 
to  Nan's" — still  he  dared  not  put  her  off  a  step  from  the 
intimacy  of  neighborly  relations  by  presenting  Nan  more 
formally — "and  spend  the  night  there.  In  the  morning, 
you'll  go  back  to  Boston  with  her.  I  shall  enter  a  com 
plaint  against  your  husband." 

It  wasn't  so  hard  to  give  Tenney  the  intimacy  of  that 
name,  now  she  looked  so  sweetly  calm.  She  started  from 
her  dream,  glanced  up  at  him  and,  to  his  renewed  discom 
fort,  broke  into  a  little  laugh.  It  was  sheer  amusement, 
loving  raillery  too,  of  him  who  could  give  her  the  price 
less  gift  of  a  God  made  man  and  then  ask  her  to  forsake 
the  arena  where  the  beasts  were  harmless  now  because  she 
no  longer  feared  them. 


240  OLD  CROW 

"Why,  bless  your  heart,"  she  said,  in  a  homespun  fash 
ion  of  address  that  might  have  been  Charlotte's,  "I 
wouldn't  no  more  run  away !  An'  if  you  should  have  him 
before  the  judge,  I'd  no  more  say  a  word  ag'inst  him  !  I 
wouldn't  git  you  into  any  trouble  either,"  she  explained, 
in  an  anxious  loyalty.  "I'd  say  you  was  mistaken,  that's 
all." 

Something  seemed  to  break  in  him. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked  roughly.  "What  do 
you  think  you  mean?  I  suppose  you're  in  love  with  him?" 

Tira  looked  at  him  patiently.  She  yielded  to  a  little 
sigh. 

"Why,"  she  said,  "that's  where  I  belong.  I  don't," 
she  continued  hesitatingly,  in  her  child's  manner  of  ex 
plaining  herself  from  her  inadequate  vocabulary,  "I  guess 
I  don't  think  about  them  things  much,  not  same  as  men- 
folks  think.  But  there's  one  or  two  things  I've  got  to 
look  out  for."  Here  she  gave  that  quick  significant 
glance  at  the  little  mound  on  the  couch.  "An'  there  ain't 
no  way  to  do  it  less'n  I  stay  right  there  in  my  tracks." 

Raven,  his  hand  gripping  the  mantel,  rested  his  fore 
head  on  it  and  dark  thoughts  came  upon  him.  They 
quickened  his  breath  and  brought  the  blood  to  his  face 
and  his  aching  eyes.  It  was  all  trouble,  it  seemed  to  him, 
trouble  from  the  first  minute  of  his  finding  her  in  the 
woods.  She  might  draw  some  temporary  comfort  from 
his  silent  championship,  in  the  momentary  safety  of  this 
refuge  he  had  given  her.  But  he  could  by  no  means  cut 
her  knot  of  difficult}7.  She  was  as  far  from  him  as  she 
had  been  the  moment  before  he  saw  her.  She  was 
speaking. 

"It  ain't,"  she  said,  in  a  low  voice,  "it  ain't  that  I  don't 
keep  in  mind  what  you've  done  for  me,  what  you're  doin' 


OLD  CROW 

all  the  time.  But  I  guess  you  don't  see  what  you've  done 
this  night's  the  most  of  all.  Now  you've  told  me  you 
know  it's  true" — here  she  was  shy  before  the  talk  of  god 
head — "why,  I  know  it's  so,  too.  An'  I  sha'n't  ever  be 
afraid  any  more.  I  sha'n't  ever  feel  alone." 

"But  Tira."  he  felt  himself  saying  to  her  weakly,  "I 
feel  alone." 

Did  he  actually  say  it,  he  wondered.  No,  for  he  lifted 
his  face  from  his  shielding  hand  and  turned  miserable  eyes 
upon  her,  and  her  eyes  met  him  clearly.  Yet  they  were 
deeper,  softer,  moved  by  a  sad  compassion.  There  was 
something  patiently  maternal  in  them,  as  if  she  had  found 
herself  again  before  the  old  sad  question  of  man's  uncom- 
prehended  desires.  She  spoke,  strangely  he  thought  then, 
and  afterward  he  wondered  if  she  actually  had  said  the 
thing  at  all. 

"There's  nothin'  in  the  world  I  wouldn't  do  for  you, 

not  if  'twas  anyways  right.  But "  and  again  she  gave 

that  fleeting  glance  of  allegiance  to  the  child. 

He  tried  impatiently  to  pull  himself  together.  She 
must  see  there  was  something  hideous  in  his  inability  to 
nmke  her  safe,  something  stupid,  also. 

"Tira,"  he  said,  "you  don't  understand.  Sometimes  I 
think  you  don't  realize  what  might  happen  to  you.  And 
it's  silly  to  let  it  happen,  foolish,  ignorant.  If  some  one 
told  you  there  was  a  man  outside  your  door  and  he  wanted 
to  kill  you,  you'd  lock  the  door.  Now  there's  a  man  in 
side  your  house,  inside  your  room,  that  wants  to  kill  you. 
Yes,  he  does,"  he  insisted,  answering  the  denial  in  her  face, 
"when  he's  got  one  of  his  brain  storms.  Is  there  anything 
to  pride  yourself  on  in  staying  to  be  killed?" 

She  answered  first  with  a  smile,  the  sweet  reassurance 
of  a  confident  look. 


OLD  CROW 

"He  won't,"  she  said,  "he  won't  try  to  kill  me,  or  kill 
him" — she  made  a  movement  of  the  hand  toward  the  couch 
—"no,  not  ever.  You  know  why?  I'm  goin'  to  remind 
him  Who's  in  the  room." 

"Why  didn't  you  remind  him  this  time?"  Raven  queried, 
pushed  to  the  cynical  logic  of  it.  "You  could  have  turned 
his  own  words  against  him.  It  wasn't  an  hour  since  he'd 
said  it  himself." 

"Because,"  she  answered,  in  a  perfect  good  faith,  "then 
I  didn't  know  'twas  so." 

"Didn't  know  'twas  so?     Why  didn't  you?" 

Her  eyes  were  large  with  wonder. 

"Because,"  she  said,  "then  you  hadn't  told  me." 

Raven  stared  at  her  a  full  minute,  realizing  to  the  full 
the  exact  measure  of  his  lie  coming  back  to  him. 

"Tira,"  said  he,  "I  believe  you're  not  quite  bright." 

"No,"  said  she  simply,  with  no  apparent  feeling,  "I 
guess  I  ain't.  'Most  everybody's  told  me  so,  first  or  last." 

It  sobered  him. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  "I  didn't  mean  that. 
I'm  off  my  head  a  little.  I'm  so  worried,  you  see.  I  want 
to  know  you're  safe.  You're  not  safe.  It  isn't  easy  to 
accept  that — to  lie  down  under  it." 

Usually  he  had  spoken  to  her  in  the  homespun  phras 
ing  he  instinctively  used  with  his  country  neighbors,  but 
the  last  words  were  subtly  different  to  her,  they  were  more 
distant,  and  she  accepted  them  with  a  grave  humility. 

"Yes,  sir,"  she  said,  and  Raven  awoke  to  the  irritating 
knowledge  that  she  was  calling  him  "sir."  He  smiled  at 
her  and  she  realized  that,  as  mysteriously  as  she  had  been 
pushed  away,  now  she  was  taken  back. 

"So,"  he  said,  "you  won't  go  down  to  Nan's  and  spend 
the  night?" 


OLD  CROW  243 

She  shook  her  head,  watching  him.  Little  as  she 
meant  to  do  what  he  told  her,  she  wanted  less  to  offend 
him. 

"Then,"  said  Raven,  "you'll  stay  here.  I'll  bring  in 
some  more  blankets,  and  you  lie  on  the  couch.  You'll 
have  to  keep  an  eye  on  the  fire.  Don't  let  it  go  down 
entirely.  It  can  get  pretty  cold." 

He  got  up,  lighted  a  candle  and  went  into  the  bedroom 
for  the  blankets.  Tira  followed  him  and  silently  took 
the  pair  he  gave  her,  came  back  to  the  couch  and  spread 
them  carefully,  not  to  waken  the  child.  He  followed  with 
more  and,  while  she  finished  arranging  her  couch,  piled 
wood  on  the  fire.  For  a  moment  he  had  an  idea  of  an 
nouncing  that  he  would  stay  and  keep  the  fire  up  while 
she  slept.  But  even  if  she  submitted  to  that,  she  would 
be  uneasy.  And  she  was  a  hardy  woman.  It  would  not 
hurt  her  to  come  awake,  as  he  knew  she  could,  with  the 
house-guarding  instinct  of  the  woman  trained  to  serve. 

"There,"  he  said,  beating  the  wood-dust  from  his  hands, 
"now  lock  me  out.  Remember,  you're  not  to  go  back 
there  to-night.  You  owe  that  to  me.  You've  given  me 
bother  enough." 

But  his  eyes,  when  hers  sought  them  timidly,  were  smil 
ing  at  her.  She  laughed  a  little,  happily.  It  was  all 
right,  then. 

"You  ain't  mad,"  she  said,  half  in  shy  assertion,  fol 
lowing  him  to  the  door. 

"No,"  he  said  gravely.  "I'm  not  mad.  I  couldn't  be, 
with  you.  I  never  shall  be.  Good  night." 

He  opened  the  door,  went  out  and  waited  an  instant  to 
hear  the  key  click  behind  him  and  ran  plunging  down  the 
snowy  road.  Once  on  the  way  he  looked  up  at  the  mys 
terious  stars  visible  in  the  line  of  sky  above  the  track  he 


OLD  CROW 

followed.  Deeper  and  deeper  it  was,  the  mystery.  He 
had  given  her  a  God  to  adore  and  keep  her  protecting 
company.  He  who  did  not  believe  had  wrought  her  faith 
out  of  his  unbelief.  When  he  turned  into  the  road,  he 
thought  he  saw  someone  under  the  porch  of  his  house  and 
hurried,  his  mind  alive  to  the  chance  of  meeting  Tenney, 
searching  for  her.  The  figure  did  not  move  and  as  he 
went  up  to  the  house  a  voice  called  to  him.  It  was 
Amelia's. 

"O  John,  is  that  you?  I  can't  see  how  you  can  leave 
the  house  alone  to  go  wandering  off  in  the  woods  and 
never  saying  a  word." 

There  she  was  in  her  fur  coat,  not  so  much  frightened, 
he  thought,  as  hurt.  She  was  querulous  with  agitation. 

"All  right,  Milly,"  he  said,  and  put  an  arm  through 
hers,  "here  I  am.  And  the  house  isn't  alone.  Don't  get 
so  nervous.  Next  thing  you  know,  you'll  have  to  see  a 
specialist." 

"And  Charlotte's  gone,"  she  lamented  sharply,  allowing 
him  to  march  her  in  and  turning,  in  the  warm  hall,  to  con 
front  him.  "Here  I've  been  all  alone." 

"Where's  Jerry?" 

Raven  had  thrown  off  his  hat  and  coat  and  frankly 
owned  himself  tired. 

"In  the  kitchen.  But  he  won't  tell  where  Charlotte  is. 
He  says  she's  gone  up  along." 

"Well,  so  she  has,  to  a  neighbor's.  Come  into  the  lib 
rary  and  get  'het'  through  before  you  go  to  bed." 

"And,"  she  lamented,  letting  him  give  her  a  kindly 
push  toward  the  door,  "I've  got  to  pack,  myself,  if  Char 
lotte  doesn't  come." 

"Pack?"     He  stared  at  her.     "You're  not  leaving?" 

"Yes,  John."     She  said  it  portentously,  as  bidding  him 


OLD  CROW  245 

remember  he  might  be  sorry  when  she  was  no  more.  "I'm 
going.  Dick  has  telegraphed." 

"Anything  the  matter?" 

"That's  it.  I  don't  know.  If  I  did,  I  could  decide.  He 
orders  me,  simply  orders  me,  to  take  the  early  train. 
What  do  you  make  of  it?" 

Raven  considered.  Actually,  he  thought,  Dick  was 
carrying  out  his  benevolent  plan  of  getting  her  back,  by 
hook  or  crook. 

"I  don't  believe  I'd  worry,  Milly,"  he  said,  gravely, 
"but  I  think  you'd  better  go." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "that's  it.  I  don't  dare  not  to.  Some 
thing  may  be  the  matter.  I've  tried  to  telephone,  but  he 
doesn't  answer.  I  must  go." 


XXII 

Raven  always  remembered  that  as  the  night  of  his  life, 
up  to  this  present  moment,  the  mountain  peak  standing 
above  the  waters  of  his  discontent.  The  top  of  the  moun 
tain,  that  was  what  lifted  itself  in  an  island  inexpressibly 
green  and  fair  above  those  sullen  depths,  and  on  this,  the 
island  of  deliverance,  he  was  to  stand.  After  he  had  rea 
soned  Amelia  into  her  room  and  persuaded  her  to  leave 
her  packing  till  the  morning,  he  went  up  to  his  own  cham 
ber,  mentally  spent  and  yet  keyed  to  an  exhausting  pitch. 
He  was  excited  yet  tired,  tied  up  into  nervous  knots  with 
out  the  will  to  loose  them.  What  sense  in  going  to  bed, 
when  he  could  not  sleep?  What  need  of  reviewing  the 
last  chapter  of  his  knowledge  of  the  woman  who  was  so 
compelling  in  her  helplessness  and  her  childlike  faith?  He 
would  read :  something  silly,  if  he  had  it  at  hand.  The 
large  matters  of  the  mind  and  soul  were  not  for  this  un 
willing  vigil ;  and  at  this  intruding  thought  of  the  soul  he 
smiled,  remembering  how  glibly  he  had  bartered  the  integ 
rity  of  his  own  to  add  his  fragment  to  the  rising  temple 
of  Tira's  faith.  He  had  strengthened  her  at  the  expense 
of  his  own  bitter  certainties.  It  was  done  deliberately 
and  it  was  not  to  be  regretted,  but  it  did  open  a  window 
upon  his  private  rectitude.  Was  his  state  of  mind  to  be 
taken  so  very  seriously,  even  by  himself?  Not  after  that! 
Lounging  before  his  book-shelves  in  search  of  a  soporific, 
suddenly  he  remembered  the  mottled  book.  It  flashed  into 

246 


OLD  CROW  2*7 

his  mind  as  if  a  hand  had  hurled  it  there.     He  would  read 
Old  Crow's  journal. 

Settled  in  bed,  the  light  beside  him  and  the  mottled  book 
in  his  hand,  he  paused  a  thoughtful  minute  before  open 
ing  it.     Poor  old  devil !    Was  this  the  jangled  record  of  an 
unsound  mind,  or  was  it  the  apologia  for  an  eccentricity 
probably    not    so    uncommon,    after    all?       Foolish,    he 
thought,  to  leave  a  record  of  any  sort,  unless  you  were  a 
heaven-accredited    genius,    entrusted    with   the   leaves    of 
life.     Better  to  recognize  your  own  atomic  insignificance, 
and  sink  willingly  into  the  predestined  sea.     He  opened  it 
and  took  a  comprehensive  glance  over  the  first  page :  an 
oblong  of  small  neat  handwriting.     Many  English  hands 
were  like  that.     He  was  accustomed  to  call  it  a  literary 
hand.     Over  the  first  date  he  paused,  to  refer  it  back  to 
his  own  years.    How  big  was  he  when  Old  Crow  had  begun 
the  diary?     Seven,  that  was  all.     He  was  a  boy  of  seven 
years,  listening  with  an   angry  yet  fascinated  attention 
to  the  other  boys  talking  about  Old  Crow,  who  was,  they 
said,  luny,   love-cracked.      He  never  could  hear  enough 
about  the  terrifying  figure  choosing  to  live  up  there  in 
the  woods  alone,  and  who  yet  seemed  so  gentle  and  so  like 
other  folk  when  you  met  him  and  who  gave  you  checker- 
berry  lozenges.     Still  he  was  furious  when  the  boys  hooted 
him  and  then  ran,  because,  after  all,  Old  Crow  was  his  own 
family.     And  with  the  first  words,  his  mind  started  to  an 
alert  attention.     The  words  were  to  him. 

"I  am  going  to  write  some  things  down  for  the  boy," 
Old  Crow  began,  in  the  neat-handed  script.  "He  is  a 
good  little  boy.  He  looks  like  me  at  his  age.  I  had  a 
kind  of  innocence.  He  has  it,  too.  If  he  should  grow  up 
anything  like  me,  I  want  him  to  have  this  letter" — the 
last  word  was  crossed  out  and  a  more  formal  one  substi 
tuted — "statement.  If  he  thinks  about  things  anyways 


248  OLD  CROW 

different  from  what  the  neighbors  do,  they  wfll  begin  to 
laugh  at  him,  and  try  to  make  him  believe  he  is  not  in  his 
right  mind." 

Over  and  over,  through  the  first  pages  of  the  book. 
there  were  grammatical  lapses  when  Old  Crow,  apparently 
from  earnestness  of  feeling,  fell  into  colloquial  speech. 
This  was  always  when  he  got  so  absorbed  in  his  subject 
that  he  lacked  the  patience  to  go  back  and  rewrite  accord 
ing  to  rules  he  certainly  knew  but  which  had  ceased  to 
govern  his  daily  intercourse. 

~He  must  remember  he  may  be  in  his  right  mind,  for  afl 
that.  If  one  man  thinks  a  thing,  it  might  be  true  if  forty 
thousand  men  think  different.  The  first  man  that  thought 
the  earth  was  round,  when  everybody  else  thought  it  was 
flat,  was  one  man.  The  boy  wfll  be  told  I  was  crazy.  He 
wfll  be  told  I  was  love-cracked.  I  did  want  Selina  James. 
She  was  a  sweet,  pretty  girl  and  high-headed,  and  the 
things  some  folks  thought  of  her  were  not  so.  But  she 
was  the  kind  that  takes  the  world  as  it  was  made  and  asks 
no  questions,  and  when  I  couldn't  take  it  so  and  tried  to 
explain  to  her  how  I  felt  about  it.  she  didn't  know  any 
way  but  to  laugh.  Perhaps  she  was  afraid.  And  she  did 
get  sick  of  me  and  turned  me  off.  She  married  and  went 
away.  I  was  glad  she  went  away,  because  it  is  very  hard 
to  keep  seeing  anybody  you  thought  liked  you  and  find 
thev  didn't,  after  alL  It  keeps  reminding  you.  It  was 
after  that  time  I  built  me  the  hut  and  came  up  here  to 


"Now  the  boy  wfll  hear  it  was  on  account  of  Selina 
James  that  I  came  up  here,  but  it  is  not  so,  though  it  well 
might  have  been.  It  was  about  that  time  I  began  to  un 
derstand  what  a  hard  time  'most  everybody  is  having  — 
except  for  a  little  while  when  they  are  young,  and  some 
times  then  —  and  I  couldn't  stand  it.  And  I  thought  how 


OLD  CROU  249 

it  might  not  be  so  if  everybody  would  turn  to  and  help 
everybody  else,  and  that  might  be  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
the  same  as  we  read  about  it.  And  then  one  day  I  went 
out — I  was  always  going  round  the  fields  and  woods,  kind 
of  still,  because  I  liked  to  come  on  little  animals  living 
their  own  lives  in  their  own  way — and  I  came  to  the  open 
spot  up  above  the  hut  where  there  are  the  old  apple  trees 
left  from  the  first  house  the  Ravens  lived  in,  on  the  back 
road,  before  the  other  road  went  through.  And  on  one 
of  the  lower  limbs  of  the  apple  tree  was  a  robin  and  she 
was  making  that  noise  a  robin  makes  when  she  is  scared 
?most  to  pieces,  and  on  another  limb  there  was  a  red  squir 
rel,  and  he  was  chattering  so  I  knew  he  was  scared,  too. 
And  down  under  the  tree  there  was  a  snake  pointed  right 
at  a  little  toad,  and  I  stamped  my  foot  and  hollered  to 
scare  him  away:  and  that  same  minute  he  struck  and  the 
toad  fell  over,  whether  poisoned  to  death  or  scared  to 
death  I  didn't  know.  And  the  snake  slipped  away,  because 
he  was  afraid  of  me.  just  as  the  toad  was  afraid  of  him. 
And  the  bird  smoothed  down  her  feathers  and  flew  away. 
and  the  squirrel  run  along  where  he  was  going.  They  had 
got  off  that  time,  and  I  suppose  the  next  minute  they 
forgot  all  about  it.  But  I  never  forgot.  It  was  just  as  if 
something  had  painted  a  picture  to  show  me  what  the 
world  was.  It  was  full  of  fear.  Everything  was  made  to 
hunt  down  and  kill  everything  else,  except  the  innocent 
things  that  eat  grass  and  roots,  and  innocent  as  they  be 
— as  they  are — they  are  killed,  too.  And  who  made  it  so  ? 
God.  So  what  peace  could  I  have — what  peace  could  any 
body  ever  have — in  a  world  where,  from  morning  till  night. 
it  is  war  and  murder  and  the  fear  of  death?  And  what 
good  is  there  in  trying  to  bring  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
down  to  men?  You  can't  bring  it  to  the  animals.  What 
if  you  could  die  for  men?  A  good  many  have  done  that 


250  OLD  CROW 

besides  Jesus  Christ.  But  who  is  going  to  die  for  the  ani 
mals?  And  the  animals  in  captivity — I  saw  a  bear 
once,  in  a  cage,  walking  up  and  down,  up  and  down,  and 
moaning.  I  saw  a  polar  bear  once  trying  to  cool  himself 
on  a  cake  of  ice.  I  saw  an  eagle  with  his  wings  clipped. 
An  eagle  ought  to  be  up  in  the  air.  And  all  that  could  be 
done  away  with,  by  law,  if  men  would  see  to  it.  But  even 
then  (and  this  is  the  strangest  part  of  it,  the  part  that 
won't  bear  thinking  about)  it  is  not  only  that  men  are 
unmerciful  to  the  animals,  but  the  animals,  when  the}7  are 
hungry,  are  unmerciful  to  one  another.  I  shall  come  back 
to  this. 

"Now  about  Jesus  Christ.  I  hate  to  write  this  because, 
if  the  boy  does  not  see  things  as  I  do,  maybe  it  will  be 
bad  for  him  to  read  it,  and  he  may  think  I  am  blasphem 
ing  holy  things.  I  pray  him  to  remember  I  write  in  ear 
nestness  and  love,  love  for  him,  for  the  earth  and  for  the 
animals.  I  want  to  tell  him  things  look  very  black  to  me. 
When  I  think  how  I  felt  over  losing  Selina  James  it  seems 
to  me  as  nothing  compared  with  the  way  I  feel  about  the 
way  the  world  is  made.  For  it  is  all  uncertainty  and 
'most  all  pain.  It  seems  to  me  it  is  not  possible  for  any 
thing  to  be  blacker  than  the  earth  is  to  me.  I  wake  in 
the  morning  with  a  cloud  over  me,  and  when  I  go  to  bed 
at  night  the  cloud  is  there.  It  settles  down  on  me  like — I 
don't  know  how  to  say  what  it  is  like — and  I  call  out,  up 
here  alone  in  the  woods.  I  call  to  God.  I  remember  how 
He  made  the  earth  and  I  ask  Him  why  He  had  to  do  it  so. 
Over  and  over  I  ask  Him.  He  does  not  answer.  He  can't. 
I  suppose  that  is  what  it  is  to  be  God.  You  have  to  make 
a  thing  a  certain  way,  and  after  it  is  done  they  have  to 
take  it,  the  men  and  the  animals,  and  do  the  best  they 
can  with  it.  And  one  night  when  I  was  calling  to  God, 
there  was  a  scream  of  an  animal — a  little  animal — just 


OLD  CROW  251 

outside,  and  I  know  an  owl  had  got  him.  And  I  covered 
my  ears,  for  it  seemed  as  if  that  was  God's  answer  to  me, 
and  I  didn't  want  to  hear  any  more.  I  even  thought — 
and  I  tell  the  boy  this  so  that  if  he  has  thoughts  that 
frighten  him  he  will  have  the  comfort  of  knowing  some 
body  has  thought  them  before — I  thought  that  scream 
was  God's  answer.  It  was  a  good  many  months  before  I 
could  pray  again,  even  to  ask  God  why. 

"Now  about  religion.  A  great  many  people  go  to 
church  and  find  comfort  in  it,  and  they  come  home  and 
eat  meat  for  their  dinners,  meat  killed — they  don't  know 
how  it  is  killed.  Sometimes  it  is  killed  the  best  you  can 
and  sometimes  not.  They  don't  seem  to  think  about  that. 
They  have  done  their  duty  and  gone  to  church,  and  they 
go  out  to  feed  the  animals  they  are  going  to  kill  when  they 
are  fat  enough,  and  sometimes  the  animals  will  be  killed 
the  best  they  can  and  sometimes  not.  And  if  they  think 
about  their  sins,  they  quiet  themselves  by  thinking  Christ 
has  taken  them  on  His  own  shoulders.  And  so,  unless 
somebody  they  love  has  died,  or  they  are  poor  or  disap 
pointed,  they  say  it  is  a  very  pleasant  world,  and  they  ask 
for  another  slice  of  beef  and  plan  what  they  will  do  Mon 
day,  now  Sunday  is  so  far  along.  Now  if  the  boy  is  that 
kind  of  a  boy,  let  him  be  like  those  people  who  do  the 
best  they  can  without  questioning.  Let  him  do  the  best 
he  can  and  not  question.  But  if  he  is  different,  if  he  has 
to  think — sometimes  I  am  sure  he  \vill  have  to,  for  I  can 
not  help  seeing  he  looks  out  of  his  eyes  like  me.  His  eyes 
are  terrible  to  me,  for  they  are  always  asking  questions, 
and  that  is  what  Grandmother  Raven  used  to  say  to  me. 
She  used  to  say:  'You  are  always  asking  questions  with 
your  eyes.  Stop  staring  and  ask  your  questions  right 
out.'  But  I  couldn't.  As  long  ago  as  that,  I  knew  my 
questions  hadn't  any  answers. 


OLD  CROW 

"Now  if  the  boy  begins  to  ask  himself  questions  about 
Jesus  Christ,  whether  He  is  the  son  of  God,  and  whether 
He  could  take  on  Himself  the  sins  of  the  world,  I  want  to 
tell  him  that  I  am  sure  it  is  not  so.  I  want  the  boy  to 
remember  that  nobody  can  take  away  his  sins :  nobody  but 
himself.  He  must  accept  his  punishments.  He  must  even 
go  forward  to  meet  them,  for  through  them  alone  can  he 
learn  how  to  keep  away  from  sin.  And  I  want  him  to 
regard  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  with  love  and  reverence, 
and  make  his  own  life  as  much  like  it  as  he  can.  But  I 
want  him  to  remember,  too,  that  God  made  him  as  he  is, 
and  made  his  father  and  mother  and  all  the  rest  back  to 
the  first  man,  and  that  there  is  no  guilt  of  sinfulness  upon 
man  as  a  race.  There  is  only  the  burden  of  ignorance. 
We  live  in  the  dark.  We  were  born  into  it.  As  far  as  our 
knowledge  of  right  and  wrong  goes,  so  far  are  we  guilty. 
But  He  has  made  us  as  we  are,  and  if  there  is  guilt,  it  is 
not  ours." 

As  Raven  read  this,  he  found  himself  breathing  heavily 
in  the  excitement  of  knowing  what  it  cost  the  man  to  write 
so  nakedly  for  casual  eyes.  To  that  elder  generation, 
trained  in  the  habit  of  thought  that  prevailed  in  a  coun 
try  region,  so  many  years  ago,  it  was  little  short  of  blas 
phemy.  He  turned  a  page,  and  had  a  cumulative  sur 
prise.  For  time  had  leaped.  The  date  was  seven  years 
later.  Old  Crow  was  now  over  sixty,  and  this  was  the 
year  before  his  death.  Raven  could  hardly  believe  in  the 
likelihood  of  so  wide  a  leap,  but  the  first  line  showed  him 
it  was  actual.  The  subject  matter  was  different  and  so 
was  the  style.  The  sentences  raced  as  if  they  were  in  a 
hurry  to  get  themselves  said  before  the  pen  should  drop 
from  a  palsied  hand. 

"I  gave  up  writing  with  that  last  line.  I  thought  there 
was  no  more  to  sa^.  I  didn't  even  want  to  read  it  over. 


OLD  CROW  253 

If  I  hadn't  said  it  well,  still  I  had  said  it  and  I  didn't  see 
any  better  way.  I  wanted  to  fortify  the  boy  against  the 
loneliness  of  feeling  there  was  nobody  that  understood.  I 
wanted  to  tell  him  I  understood.  That  was  all  I  could  do 
for  him  at  that  time.  But  a  great  deal  more  has  hap 
pened.  The  last  of  it  happened  over  two  years  ago,  but 
I  was  too  busy  to  write  it  down.  Besides,  I  didn't  know 
there  would  be  such  things  to  write.  The  boy  knows  me  a 
little  now.  He  comes  up  oftener.  His  mother  brings 
him.  She  is  very  sweet  and  gentle,  but  she  will  not  leave 
him  alone  with  me  because  I  am  queer  and  she  is  afraid 
I  may  teach  him  to  be  queer.  She  does  not  understand. 
She  wouldn't  if  I  told  her.  She  takes  things  as  they  are. 
There  are  no  questions  in  her  mind.  There  will  be  in  the 
boy's.  They  have  begun  to  come.  I  can  see  them  more 
than  ever  by  the  look  in  his  eyes.  Several  years  ago, 
about  when  I  finished  waiting  in  this  book,  I  saw  I  should 
have  to  give  up  questioning  myself  and  calling  on  God. 
There  were  no  answers.  If  there  were,  He  didn't  mean  to 
let  me  have  them.  I  mustn't  keep  on.  It  was  dangerous. 
I  got  no  good  out  of  it  and  I  should  come  to  harm.  And 
if  I  had  got  to  live,  I  must  be  as  near  like  other  folks  as  I 
could.  So  I  must  be  as  busy  as  I  could.  And  it  came  to 
me  that  over  beyond  the  mountain  there  were  folks  poorer 
than  I  am,  and  that  knew  less,  a  good  deal  less.  I  didn't 
know  anything  about  God,  but  I  did  know  I  must  keep 
clean  and  eat  the  right  food.  So  I  begun  to  take  long 
tramps  round  the  countryside,  and  wherever  I  went  I'd 
try  to  find  out  the  sick  and,  if  the  family  was  poor,  work 
for  them  a  while  and  sit  up  with  the  sick  one,  and,  if  he 
was  discouraged,  try  to  help  him  through. 

"So  it  happened  I  was  away  from  the  hut  a  good  deal 
of  the  time,  and  I  got  an  idea  the  Ravens  liked  that.  It 
must  have  touched  their  pride  to  have  Old  Crow  living  up 


254  OLD  CROW 

here  alone,  queer  as  Dick's  hat-band.  Whichever  way  I 
fixed  it,  I  was  a  kind  of  a  curse:  for  when  I  went  off  on 
my  wanderings  I  was  a  tramp  and  the  news  of  it  came 
back  home,  and  I  often  think  the  boy's  mother  was  sorry 
and  wished  I  wouldn't,  though  even  that  was  better  than 
my  being  around,  toleing  off  the  boy.  I  liked  my  wander 
ings,  in  summer  best  of  all.  But  in  winter  the  folks 
needed  me  more,  shut  up  so  in  tight  houses,  catching  colds 
in  bad  air,  and  it  got  so  when  they  were  sick  they'd  send 
for  me  and  I  was  proper  pleased  to  go.  And  they  came 
to  have  a  kind  of  a  trust  in  me,  and  I  was  nearer  being 
contented  than  I'd  been  in  my  whole  life.  Because  the 
questions  didn't  come  hardly  at  all,  now.  I  was  too  busy 
by  day  and  too  tired  at  night.  So  it  went  on  till  one  day 
I  came  to  old  Billy  Jones's  little  house,  where  he  lived  all 
alone  in  the  dirt  and  filth.  It  was  just  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountain  and  no  neighbors  under  half  a  mile.  I  say  he 
lived  there,  but  he  wasn't  there  more  than  a  third  of  the 
time.  The  boy  will  remember  how  he  used  to  go  along 
the  road,  full  as  a  tick,  and  the  school  children  making 
fun  of  him  and  then  running  before  he  could  get  at  them. 
I  don't  know  as  he  would,  though.  There  never  was  any 
harm  in  him,  only  he  did  neglect  himself  so  he  was  an 
awful  sight.  And  the  only  time  he  was  in  his  little  house 
was  when  he'd  been  hired  out  haying  or  something,  and 
got  his  money  and  spent  it  and  come  back  with  crackers 
and  cheese  in  his  old  carpet  bag,  to  sober  up. 

"This  day  I  was  speaking  about  (it  was  October  and  no 
wind)  I  was  going  by  his  house  and  I  saw  a  smoke  com 
ing  out  of  the  chimney,  and  I  thought  old  Billy  had  come 
home  to  sober  up.  But  I  hadn't  hardly  got  to  the  house 
before  I  heard  him  calling  me,  and  I  looked  and  there  he 
was  in  the  front  door  leaning  on  a  cane. 

"  'You  come  in  here,'  says  he,  and  I  went  in. 


OLD  CROW  255 

"It  was  a  terrible  hog's  nest,  his  front  room  was,  but  I 
paid  no  attention,  for  that's  the  way  he  lived.  He  sat 
down  in  a  chair  and  made  a  motion  with  his  hand  for  me 
to  come  near,  and  I  did,  and  he  took  my  hand  and  put  it 
on  his  knee. 

"  'Feel  that,'  he  says.  And  when  I  didn't  know  what  he 
meant,  nor  care  hardly,  for  I  thought  he  might  be  in 
drink,  he  called  out,  in  a  queer  voice — sharp  it  was,  and 
pitiful — and  says  he:  'My  legs  are  swelling.  Hard  as  a 
rock.' 

"Then  I  saw  he  was  in  a  trouble  of  fear,  and  I  asked 
him  questions  and  he  told  me  how  long  it  had  been  com 
ing  on  and  how  he  went  to  the  doctor  down  to  the  street, 
and  the  doctor  told  him  he  was  a  sick  man,  and  how  he 
would  grow  worse  instead  of  better  and  could  never  take 
care  of  himself  in  the  world,  and  the  doctor  would  get  him 
sent  to  the  Poor  Farm.  That  was  his  trouble.  He  did 
not  want  to  go  to  the  Farm,  and  when  I  told  him  it  was 
the  right  way,  he  broke  down  and  shook  and  cried  and  said 
he  was  afraid  to  go.  Then  he  told  me  why.  The  boy 
must  not  read  this  until  he  is  grown  up,  but  when  he  is, 
he  will  hear  there  was  a  man  killed  over  across  the 
mountain :  Cyrus  Graves,  a  poor,  good-for-nothing  crea 
ture  as  it  was  said.  (But  God  made  him.)  He  was  found 
by  the  side  of  the  road,  and  it  was  thought  he  had  words 
with  a  peddler  that  went  along  that  day  and  never  was 
found  afterward.  But  some  thought  the  authorities 
never  tried  so  hard  as  they  might  to  find  the  peddler,  be 
cause  Cyrus  was  such  a  poor  good-for-nothing  that  he 
was  well  rid  of,  and  if  the  peddler  was  found  and  not 
convicted  he  might  come  back  and  burn  their  barns.  And 
when  old  Billy  Jones  was  shaking  there  before  me,  I  kept 
asking  him  what  he  was  afraid  of,  and  he  said: 
"  'Will  you  promise  not  to  tell?' 


256  OLD  CROW 

"I  said  I  would.     And  he  said: 

"  'It  was  me  that  killed  Cyrus  Graves.  We  were  com 
ing  home  together,  and  we  had  both  had  a  drop  too  much, 
and  we  had  words  about  something,  I  forget  what.  And 
which  of  us  struck  first  I  don't  know,  but  I  know  I  struck 
him  and  he  fell  pitch-polling  down  the  side  of  the  road 
into  the  gully  and  I  went  home  and  crawled  into  bed.  And 
the  next  day  they  found  him,  and  I  said  I  came  home 
across  lots,  and  there  was  a  man  that  met  me  and  he  said 
it  was  so  and  I  was  so  far  gone  in  liquor  I  never  could 
have  raised  my  head  again  that  night,  once  I'd  laid  down 
and  begun  to  sleep  it  off.  But  he  never  knew  I  did  raise 
my  head  for  I  was  not  so  well  started  as  common  and  I 
went  out  again  about  ten  to  fill  up.  And  it  was  then  I 
met  Cyrus  Graves.' 

"I  told  him  there  was  but  one  thing  for  him  to  do.  He 
must  send  for  the  sheriff  and  give  himself  up.  But  he 
cried  out  at  that  and  said: 

"  'Look  at  my  poor  legs.  Do  you  think  a  man  with 
such  legs  as  mine  has  got  strength  enough  to  be  hung?' 

"I  told  him  he  would  not  be  hung.  He  was  a  very  sick 
man,  and  there  was  no  court  of  law  in  the  world  so  un 
merciful  as  not  to  take  that  into  account.  But  he  would 
not  do  it.  He  had  not  meant  to  kill  Cyrus  Graves,  he 
said,  and  he  would  not  die  a  murderer  and  known  for  one. 
And  that  was  why  he  would  not  go  to  the  Poor  Farm. 
As  he  got  sicker,  he  might  be  delirious  or  talk  in  his  sleep. 
Rave,  that  was  the  word  he  used.  He  might  rave.  After 
he  stopped  speaking,  I  sat  thinking  it  over,  and  he 
watched  my  face.  He  spoke  first,  and  he  spoke  as  if  he 
could  hardly  wait  to  hear  the  answer  and  yet  was  obliged 
to  hear  it. 

"  'Ain't  you  goin'  to  say  you'll  come  here  an'  take  care 
of  me?'  he  said.  'My  time  won't  be  long.' 


OLD  CROW  257 

"Then  I  could  see  my  going  round  taking  care  of  the 
sick  had  made  him  turn  to  me.  That  was  the  way  with 
all  of  them  round  here.  They  turned  to  me.  It  was  the 
only  comfort  I  had.  I  told  him  I  could  not  take  care  of 
him  there.  It  was  no  fit  place.  I  thought  a  spell  longer, 
and  he  watched  me.  His  eyes  were  full  of  fear.  The  lit 
tle  animals  look  like  that  when  they  are  trapped.  Then 
I  told  him  I  would  have  him  brought  over  to  the  hut  if  he 
would  come,  and  he  jumped  at  it.  I  scarcely  ever  saw  a 
man  so  wild  with  thankfulness.  And  the  next  day  I  hired 
a  team  and  went  over  after  him,  and  I  took  care  of  him 
to  the  end." 

Here  was  a  heavy  dash.  Raven  could  imagine  Old 
Crow's  drawing  the  line  with  one  impatient  stroke  because 
he  had  got  so  far  in  a  story  he  could  ill  stop  to  write,  but 
that  had  to  be  written.  Raven  had  forgotten  Tira  up 
there  in  the  lonesome  woods,  forgotten  a  day  was  very 
near  when  she  would  have  to  make  one  more  of  her  des 
perate  decisions.  He  was  thinking  of  Old  Crow. 


XXIII 

He  went  on  reading: 

"There  is  no  need  of  going  into  old  Billy's  sickness. 
It  made  a  great  change  in  my  life.  As  soon  as  it  got 
about  that  I  had  taken  him  to  live  with  me,  folks  began 
to  say  I  was  queer,  the  same  as  they  did  before,  and  the 
children  would  hoot  and  run.  He  was  known  to  be  so  bad 
( they  had  always  called  him  bad ;  they  never  once  thought 
God  made  him)  they  thought  I  liked  to  keep  company 
with  him  because  I  must  be  bad,  too.  And  I  could  not 
go  about  any  more  doing  for  people  because  I  was  doing 
for  him  and  there  was  no  time.  But  people  kept  sending 
for  me,  and  when  they  saw  old  Billy  Jones  sitting  there 
with  his  bandaged  legs,  they  would  feel  hard  toward  me. 
They  said  I  would  rather  do  for  him  than  for  them,  and 
he  ought,  by  rights,  to  be  on  the  town.  That  meant 
his  going  to  the  Farm.  Sometimes  I  thought  they  felt  so 
about  it  there  might  be  action  taken  to  get  him  there — 
to  the  Poor  Farm.  He  never  thought  of  this,  I  am  sure. 
He  had  a  peaceful  time,  as  much  so  as  a  man  could  have 
that  has  killed  his  body  and  begins  to  be  afraid  he  has 
killed  his  soul.  That  was  the  hardest  time  I  had  with  him : 
about  his  soul.  He  was  afraid  to  die.  I  told  him  God 
made  him  and  would  see  to  him  in  the  end,  and  that  He 
well  knew  he  did  not  mean  to  kill  Cyrus  Graves.  He  said 
that  was  true,  but  if  he  had  been  tried  here  in  a  court  of 
law  the  jury  would  have  pronounced  him  guilty  and  it 
was  very  likely  God  would.  And  there  was  hell.  These 

258 


OLD  CROW  259 

things  I  could  not  answer  because  I  did  not  know,  and 
if  I  had  any  convictions  they  were  as  dark  as  his,  though 
of  another  sort.  But  I  did  try  to  put  heart  into  him, 
and  I  hoped  the  end  would  come  before  he  suffered  any 
more. 

"I  want  the  boy  to  know  that  all  this  time  his  mother 
was  a  very  great  comfort  to  me.  Of  course  she  could  not 
let  the  boy  come  up  to  the  hut,  because  old  Billy  Jones 
wa*  too  dreadful  a  sight  for  a  child  to  see.  But  she 
cooked  a  great  many  delicate  things  and  brought  them 
up  or  sent  them,  and,  one  day  I  shall  never  forget,  when 
I  -had  a  blind  headache  and  had  to  lie  down  in  the  dark, 
she  sat  with  Billy  a  long  time,  to  keep  him  from  being 
lonesome,  and  afterward  I  found  she  had  bandaged  his 
legs. 

"As  time  went  on  and  he  grew  worse  and  worse,  there 
was  but  one  thing  he  wanted.  It  was  to  be  forgiven.  I 
tried  again  to  persuade  him  to  tell  publicly  the  straight 
story  of  the  killing  and  so  die  with  a  clean  mind.  This 
he  would  not  do.  He  had  asked  me  to  get  him  a  head 
stone,  with  his  name  on  it  all  complete,  and  he  was  much 
set  against  being  remembered  as  a  murderer.  All  his  life 
he  had  lived  outside  the  law,  so  to  speak,  and  he  wanted 
to  die  respectable.  I  told  him  it  might  happen  to  him 
that,  after  his  death,  somebody  would  be  accused  of  the 
death  of  Cyrus  Graves  and  in  that  case  I  should  break 
my  promise  to  him  and  tell.  To  this  he  consented,  though 
unwillingly,  and  I  am  now  telling,  not  only  for  the  sake 
of  the  boy,  but  for  the  sake  of  all  to  whom  the  boy  may 
have  to  pass  on  the  strange  things  that  came  to  Billy 
Jones.  His  sickness  went  on  in  a  very  painful  way,  and 
when  it  got  to  be  near  the  end  he  was  still  more  distressed 
in  mind.  He  could  not  die,  he  said,  unless  he  was  for 
given.  And  yet  he  had  to  die.  For  a  while  he  seemed 


260  OLD  CROW 

almost  to  hate  me  because  I  could  not  show  him  the 
way. 

"  'If  I  was  a  Roman  Catholic,'  he  said,  'and  you  was 
a  priest,  you  could  forgive  me  yourself.  You  would  for 
give  me,  I'll  warrant  yc.' 

"I  did  not  deny  it,  though  I  felt  very  hopeless  of  any 
thing  I  might  do.  In  those  last  days  I  could  have  denied 
him  nothing.  He  seemed  to  me  like  all  the  trouble  in  the 
world  beating  out  there  in  the  hut.  God  had  made  him, 
and  made  him  so  that  he  did  not  rightly  see  good  from 
evil,  and  he  had  ruined  his  body,  and  now  he  was  taking 
the  consequences.  And  the  night  before  he  died,  he  cried 
out  a  terrible  voice: 

"  4You  don't  say  a  word  about  Jesus  Christ.' 

"I  stood  by  his  bed  in  anguish  of  mind  perhaps  as 
great  as  his.  Yet  not  as  great,  for  he  had  no  strength 
of  body  to  bear  the  anguish  with. 

"  'You  never  have  said  anything,'  he  went  on. 

"I  felt  as  if  he  was  accusing  me  of  not  giving  him  water 
when  he  was  fevered,  or  bread  if  he  was  hungry.  Then 
he  said  he  remembered  something  he  used  to  hear  when  he 
was  little  and  he  had  hardly  ever  heard  of  it  since.  But 
he  had  heard  other  things.  And  I  guessed  he  was  remem 
bering  he  had  lived  with  the  people  who  used  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  only  to  swear  by.  He  had  heard,  he  told  me, 
that  Jesus  Christ  was  the  son  of  God,  and  God  sent  Him 
here  to  save  sinners,  and,  if  sinners  called  on  Him  to  save 
them,  they  would  be  saved.  And  then  he  looked  at  me  for  a 
minute  with  that  same  look,  as  if  he  hated  me,  and  he  said : 

"  'You  don't  believe  it.  You  wouldn't  let  me  suffer  like 
this,  if  you  did.' 

"And  all  my  spirit  broke  up  in  me,  and  my  legs  were 
weak  under  me,  and  the  tears  ran  down  on  my  face,  and 
I  said  to  him: 


OLD  CROW  261 

"  'I  do  believe  it.' 

"  'Will  you  swear  it?'  he  asked  me.  He  was  very  wild 
then.  'Will  you  swear  by  Jesus  Christ  it  is  so?' 

"  'Yes,'  I  said,  'I  will  swear.' 

"And  I  fell  on  my  knees  by  the  bed  and  said:  'Let  us 
pray.'  And  I  prayed,  in  what  words  I  don't  know,  but  my 
hand  was  on  his,  and  when  I  said  Amen,  he  said  Amen, 
too,  and  when  I  looked  at  him  all  the  trouble  was  smoothed 
out  of  his  face  and  he  said,  'Jesus  Christ!'  as  he  never 
could  have  said  it  in  his  life  before.  It  was  as  if  you  were 
speaking  to  your  mother  or  your  friend  (yet  not  just  a 
friend,  but  a  heavenly  friend)  and  shortly  he  died.  And  I 
had  told  him  a  lie.  But  I  was  not  sorry.  I  was  glad. 
What  was  my  keeping  my  poor  soul  clean  to  old  Billy 
Jones's  dying  in  peace?  It  was  the  last  thing  I  could  give 
him,  and  he  was  welcome  to  it. 

"It  was  in  the  early  morning  he  died,  and  I  did  what 
I  knew  about  making  him  right  for  his  coffin,  and  then 
went  down  to  get  one  of  the  neighbors  that  knew  more, 
and  all  that  day  I  was  busy.  The  next  day  he  would  be 
taken  away  and  lie  in  the  Methodist  church  at  the  Ridge, 
and  the  third  day  he  would  be  buried.  And  nobody  had 
ever  taken  any  interest  in  him  except  to  call  him  a  poor 
good-for-nothing  creature — nobody  except  your  mother 
(she  is  a  good  woman)  but  it  looked  as  if  he  would  have 
a  well-attended  funeral.  I  was  glad  of  that,  for  I  knew  he 
would  be  pleased.  He  was  laid  out  in  the  bedroom  of  the 
hut  and  the  window  was  open  and  the  cold  air  blowing  on 
him,  and  I  lay  down  on  the  couch  in  the  large  room.  I 
didn't  take  my  clothes  off,  for  at  such  times  it  is  respect 
ful  to  have  watchers  about  the  dead.  It  may  not  be  nec 
essary,  but  it  is  the  custom,  and  I  wanted  old  Billy  to 
have  everything  that  was  fitting  and  right.  I  did  not 
mean  to  go  to  sleep,  but  lie  there  a  spell  and  then  get  up 


OLD  CROW 

and  put  on  more  wood  and  go  into  his  cold  room  and  let 
him  feel  as  if  he  was  being  taken  care  of  to  the  last. 
And  I  lay  there  thinking  how  I  had  heard  there  was 
diphtheria  over  beyond  the  mountain  and  I  would  take  a 
day  or  two  to  rest  me  and  then  I'd  go  over  there  and  help. 
I  laughed  a  little  to  myself,  and  I  see  now  it  wasn't  a  very 
pleasant  kind  of  laugh,  for  I  thought  the  people  would 
begin  to  like  me  again  because  I  was  free  to  do  for  them. 
"And  I  did  go  to  sleep,  being,  as  I  said,  very  tired,  and 
how  long  I  slept  I  don't  know.  But  suddenly  I  waked 
up,  just  as  wide  awake  as  I  am  this  minute,  and  I  knew 
as  well  as  I  ever  knew  anything,  that  Billy  Jones  was  in 
the  room.  I  didn't  see  him.  I  didn't  hear  him.  I  didn't 
hear  anything,  outside  or  in.  It  was  a  very  still  night, 
and  there  wasn't  even  the  creaking  of  the  branches 
against  each  other.  But  Billy  Jones  was  in  the  room. 
I  wasn't  afraid,  but  I  felt  queer.  I  had  a  kind  of  prickly 
feeling  all  over  me.  The  hair  on  my  head  moved  some 
how,  according  to  the  feeling  it  gave  me.  Perhaps  that 
was  being  afraid,  only  I  don't  take  it  so.  The  reason  I 
think  differently  is  that  I  didn't  want  it  to  stop.  If 
Billy  Jones  was  there,  I  didn't  want  him  to  go  away.  If 
he  had  anything  to  say,  I  wanted  to  hear  it.  And  I  was 
as  sure  as  ever  I  was  of  anything  in  my  life  that  there  was 
something  to  say.  If  this  was  the  beginning  of  something 
that  was  going  to  happen,  it  was  only  the  beginning. 
There  was  more  to  come.  And  I  wanted  to  know  what. 
I  lay  there  as  still  almost  as  Billy's  body  in  the  next 
room.  I  was  afraid  of  missing  something.  If  there  was 
something  for  me  to  hear  I'd  got  to  keep  still  to  hear  it. 
But  I  said  that  before.  I  have  to  keep  saying  it,  it  took 
such  hold  of  me.  The  fire  hadn't  wholly  died  down.  I 
could  tell  by  that  I  hadn't  been  asleep  long.  But  I  didn't 
dare  to  get  up  and  put  on  another  stick.  I  was  afraid 


OLD  CROW  263 

if  I  moved  I  might  jar  something  and  it  would  break. 
And  I  couldn't  have  it  break  till  the  end — the  end  of  my 
knowing  what  it  was. 

"And  now  the  boy  must  remember  that  what  follows, 
if  I  live  to  write  it,  is  faithful  and  true.  That  is  what  the 
Bible  says  about  things  like  that:  they  are  faithful  and 
true.  And  mine  are  just  as  true.  It  seemed  to  me  as  if  the 
ceiling  of  the  room  raised  up  and  the  walls  opened  out  and 
the  room  was  as  if  it  was  not.  Whether  I  looked  through 
it  or  whether  it  was  gone,  I  do  not  know.  But  I  looked 
into  a  great  space.  And  it  was  dark  and  «it  one  side  of  it 
there  was  a  great  light.  And  the  light  was  not  angry, 
as  a  sunset  looks  when  it  flames  and  flares.  It  was  steady, 
and  I  knew  it  was  to  light  the  world.  And  there  came  into 
my  head  some  words :  'And  the  darkness  comprehended 
it  not.'  When  I  waked  up,  I  found  the  words  in  the  Bible, 
but  that  night  it  seemed  to  me  they  were  said  for  the  first 
time.  The  boy  must  remember  Billy  Jones  was  in  all  this. 
He  was  the  chief  part  of  it.  As  to  the  words,  it  was  as  if 
Billy  Jones  said  them.  I  was  in  the  darkness,  and  I  was 
to  be  made  to  comprehend.  And  when  I  looked  lower 
through  the  darkness — and  I  cannot  tell  how,  but  I  seemed 
to  be  in  it  and  yet  at  the  same  time  I  was  above  it,  so  that 
I  looked  down  and  saw  what  was  going  on — I  saw  multi 
tudes  of  men  and  women,  trying  to  get  through  it.  Some 
times  they  walked  slowly,  as  if  it  was  hard  to  walk,  and 
sometimes  they  jostled  each  other  and  sometimes  stopped 
to  push  one  another  about,  and  sometimes  when  some  were 
down  the  others  stamped  on  them.  But  they  were  all 
going  somewhere,  and  it  was  toward  the  light.  And  as  I 
say,  I  was  in  the  darkness  though  I  could  see  through  it, 
and  I  wondered  if  I  was  going,  too. 

"And  then  I  understood.  I  couldn't  tell  the  boy  how 
I  understood,  not  if  he  was  here  to  ask  me;  but  it  was  as 


264  OLD  CROW 

if  a  voice  spoke  and  told  me  in  two  or  three  words,  and 
few  as  they  were,  I  took  them  in  and  I  knew.  Perhaps 
there  was  a  voice.  Perhaps  it  was  the  voice  of  Billy  Jones. 
There  is  no  reason  why  not.  The  minute  after  he  got 
out  of  his  body,  he  might  have  known  everything:  I  don't 
mean  everything,  I  mean  the  one  thing  that  would  explain 
it  all.  And  he  had  a  kindness  for  me,  and  if  he  learned 
anything  that  smoothed  out  his  trouble  and  turned  it  into 
joy,  he  would  want  me  to  know,  too.  And  this  is  it, 
though  now  I  have  got  to  the  place  for  telling  it,  I  don't 
know  how.  It  is  like  a  dream.  You  have  to  tell  it  the 
minute  you  wake,  or  it  is  gone.  I  saw  that  creation  had 
been  a  long  time  going  on.  I  saw  that  although  we  have 
minds  to  think  with,  we  haven't  really,  in  comparison 
with  the  things  to  be  thought  out.  I  saw  that  we  are  so 
near  the  dust  that  we  can  no  more  account  for  the  ways 
of  Almighty  God  than  the  owl  hooting  out  there  in  the 
woods  can  read  the  words  I  am  writing  here.  I  saw  that 
nothing  is  to  be  told  us.  We  are  to  find  oat  everything 
for  ourselves,  just  as  we  have  found  electricity  and  the 
laws  of  physics.  And  poisons — we  have  found  out  those, 
some  of  them,  even  if  we  had  to  die  to  do  it.  And  God 
lets  us  die  trying  to  find  out.  He  doesn't  care  anything 
about  our  dying.  And  if  He  doesn't  care  anything  about 
our  dying,  He  doesn't  care  anything  about  the  rabbit 
broken  by  the  owl,  or  the  toad  struck  by  the  snake. 

"Now,  why  doesn't  He  care?  For  the  first  time,  I  knew 
there  was  a  reason  that  was  not  a  cruel  reason.  I  knew 
His  reasons  were  all  good.  And  I  saw  that  though  He 
could  not  break  the  rules  of  His  plan  by  telling  us  things, 
He  could  give  us  a  kind  of  a  something  inside  us  that 
should  make  us  work  it  out  ourselves.  We  had  hungers. 
We  had  one  hunger  for  eternal  life.  We  had  to  believe 
in  it,  to  help  us  bear  this  present  life.  We  believed  it  so 


OLD  CROW  265 

hard  that  men  rose  up  and  said  it  was  so,  and  we  said 
God  had  put  the  words  into  their  mouths.  And  out  of 
our  sufferings,  pity  was  born,  and  now  and  then  a  man 
would  be  raised  up  so  full  of  pity  that  other  men  believed 
in  him  and  followed  everything  he  said  and  even  called 
him  a  god.  And  this  was  well,  because  if  they  had  not 
thought  he  was  a  god,  they  might  not  have  followed  him. 
And  I  seemed  to  be  told  that  a  great  many  men  were  born 
who  were  sent  from  God,  but  I  have  not  read  many  books 
and  how  can  I  prove  whether  it  is  true? 

"But  Jesus  Christ  came,  and  His  story  is  the  story  of 
the  will  of  God.  For  men  believed  His  father  was  God. 
That  is  to  keep  in  our  minds  always  the  fatherhood  of 
God.  And  his  mother  was  believed  to  be  a  virgin.  I  do 
not  know  how  to  say  this,  but  I  was  given  to  believe  that 
that  was  no  more  true  than  I  had  thought,  but  still  that 
it  was  the  truest  of  all.  It  is  one  of  the  things  we  are  to 
believe.  We  are  to  learn  from  it — how  can  I  say? — that 
there  is  a  heavenly  birth  out  of  purity  and  light.  It  is  a 
symbol.  That  is  the  word :  a  symbol.  And  His  death  for 
mankind  is  the  everlasting  symbol  of  man's  duty :  to  die 
for  one  another.  And  He  went  into  the  grave,  and 
ascended  into  heaven,  and  so  shall  we  all  die  and  live 
again.  But  every  observance  of  every  church  is  a  symbol 
— nothing  more.  And  the  man  that  was  a  god  is  a  sym 
bol  and  nothing  more.  But  nothing  could  be  more.  For 
to  find  a  symbol  that  has  lasted,  in  one  form  or  another, 
since  the  beginning  of  the  world  is  to  learn  that  it  is 
something  the  world  itself  is  built  on.  It  is  the  picture 
book  we  are  given  before  we  can  read  print.  And  it  means 
that  something  is  working  out — and  is  not  yet — and  the 
eye  of  man  hath  not  seen  or  the  ear  of  man  heard.  And 
about  fear — that  is  the  most  wonderful  of  all  and  the 
hardest  to  tell.  It  is  our  friend.  At  first  everything 


266  OLD  CROW 

fed  upon  everything  else ;  and  so  it  does  now,  for  how  shall 
I  say  the  animal  has  fear  and  the  growing  plant  has  not? 
And  our  fear  tells  us  what  to  turn  away  from,  and  it  fits 
us  for  the  fight  of  the  mortal  life.  But  in  the  end  will  our 
fear  be  only  the  fear  of  evil?  Fear  is  our  counselor.  It  is 
our  friend. 

"Now  perhaps  I  have  done  wrong  in  trying  to  write  this 
out.  Perhaps  I  have  not  helped  the  boy  or  anybody  he 
tells.  Perhaps  I  have  offended  them.  I  know  the  sound  of 
what  I  must  have  heard  and  the  sight  of  what  I  saw  was 
clearer  to  me  before  I  tried  to  tell  about  them.  At  first 
I  kept  them  back  somewhere  in  my  mind  and  didn't  try 
to  see  them  or  hear  them  too  close.  And  when  I  did  that, 
the  great  light  was  always  there  and  I  was  running  toward 
it.  But  now  I  have  tried  to  tell,  I  see  it  is  no  more  than 
words.  They  darken  counsel.  And  I  have  put  it  back 
into  my  mind,  not  so  much  to  be  thought  about  as  to  have 
at  hand.  And  all  my  trouble  has  gone.  It  has  been  a 
long  trouble.  I  am  over  sixty  now.  But  I  am  not  afraid 
of  anything  and  I  am  not  in  doubt.  When  I  see  men 
suffering,  I  know  they  are  suffering  for  a  reason.  When 
I  find  the  bird  with  a  broken  wing  or  the  rabbit  bit  by  the 
trap  I  know  God  knows  about  them,  and  if  I  cannot  know, 
it  proves  it  is  not  necessary  I  should.  For  there  is  the 
great  light.  (But  it  is  not  likely  the  boy  will  see  this 
account  of  it  at  all,  because  I  shall  try  to  write  it  over — 
to  write  it  better — and  if  I  make  it  clearer  this  will  be 
destroyed.) 

"Another  thing:  about  the  worship  of  God.  He  does 
not  want  us  to  worship  Him  as  we  understand  it,  to  crawl 
before  Him  as  if  He  were  an  idol  we  had  set  up  to  get  us 
victories  over  our  enemies  and  to  fill  us  with  food.  He 
wants  us — what  shall  I  say? — to  open  our  hearts  and 
our  minds  and  our  ears  and  eyes  to  what  He  wants  us  to 


OLD  CROW  267 

know.  He  is  not  an  idol.  He  is  God.  And  all  the  way  to 
Him,  the  horrible  way  through  burnt  offerings,  the  blood 
of  lambs  and  goats — blood,  blood,  all  the  way — is  the 
way  that  climbs  up  to  the  real  sacrifice,  the  last  of  all: 
the  man's  own  heart. 

"One  thing  more :  the  greatest  thing  that  ever  happened 
to  me  was  old  Billy  Jones.  Was  it  because  I  was  sorry 
for  him?  Was  it  because  I  could  do  something  for  him? 
I  don't  know.  But  I  tell  the  boy  that  the  man  or  the  woman 
that  makes  him  shed  his  blood  in  pity  for  them,  that  is 
the  man  or  woman  that  will  open  his  eyes  to  what  we  call 
Eternal  Life.  What  is  Eternal  Life?  Is  it  living  for 
ever?  I  do  not  know.  But  the  words — those  two  words 
— stand  for  the  great  light  ahead  of  us,  the  light  I  truly 
saw.  And  what  the  light  is,  still  I  do  not  know.  But  this 
I  know:  God  is.  He  lives.  And  He  is  sorry.  The  boy 
may  tell  me  this  is  no  more  than  the  words  about  His 
caring  for  the  sparrow  that  falleth.  But  I  tell  him  it  is 
more  to  me,  for  this  I  have  found  out  for  myself.  And  I 
have  found  it  out  through  great  tribulation.  But  the 
tribulation  is  not  now.  It  has  stopped.  It  stopped  with 
the  sound  of  old  Billy  Jones's  voice  I  heard — somehow 
I  heard  it — when  his  body  lay  in  there  dead.  And  I  am 
not  afraid.  I  am  not  afraid  of  fear — even  for  the  little 
animals — and  that  is  more  than  for  myself.  And  that 
is  my  legacy  to  the  boy.  He  must  not  be  afraid." 

There  it  ended,  and  Raven  sat  for  a  long  time  looking 
at  the  fine  painstaking  script  and  seeing,  for  the  moment, 
at  least,  the  vision  of  Old  Crow.  He  felt  a  great  welling 
of  love  toward  him,  a  longing  to  get  hold  of  him  some 
how  and  tell  him  the  journal  had  done  its  work.  He 
understood.  And  it  meant  to  him,  in  its  halting  simplic 
ity,  more  than  all  the  books  he  had  ever  read  on  the  destiny 
of  man.  Meager  as  it  was,  it  seemed  to  him  something 


268  OLD  CROW 

altogether  new,  because  it  had  come  out  of  the  mind  of 
an  ignorant  man,  if  a  man  can  be  called  ignorant  who 
has  used  his  mind  to  its  full  capacity  of  thought  and 
unconsciously  fitted  it,  so  far  as  he  might,  to  the  majestic 
simplicities  of  the  Bible.  Old  Crow  had  never  read  any 
thing  about  legend  or  the  origins  of  belief.  There  were 
no  such  books  then  at  Wake  Hill.  He  read  no  language 
but  his  own.  Whatever  he  had  evolved,  out  of  the  roots 
of  longing,  had  been  done  in  the  loneliness  of  the  remote 
shepherd  who  charts  the  stars.  And  in  the  man  himself 
Raven  had  found  a  curious  companionship.  Their  lives 
seemed  to  have  run  a  parallel  course.  Old  Crow,  like 
himself,  was  a  victim  of  world  sickness.  And  his  wound 
had  been  cleansed;  he  had  been  healed. 

Raven  did  give  a  little  smile  to  the  thought  that,  at 
least,  the  man  had  been  saved  one  thing :  he  had  no  author 
itative  Amelia  on  his  track  to  betray  him  to  organized 
benevolence.  And  for  himself  something,  he  could  not 
adequately  tell  what,  was  as  clear  to  him  as  a  road  of 
light  to  unapprehended  certainties.  It  was  a  symbol,  It 
was  the  little  language  men  had  to  talk  in  because  they 
could  not  use  the  language  of  the  stars:  their  picture 
language.  But  it  was  the  rude  token  of  ineffable  reality. 
As  the  savage's  drawing  of  a  man  stands  for  the  man, 
so  the  symbols  wrought  out  by  the  hungry  world  stand 
for  what  is  somewhere,  yet  not  visibly  here.  For  the 
man  exists  or  the  savage  could  not  have  drawn  him.  Not 
all  the  mystics,  he  thought,  smiling  over  his  foolish  inner 
conviction  that  could  not  be  reached  through  the  mind 
but  only  through  the  heart,  not  all  the  divines,  could 
have  set  up  within  him  the  altar  of  faith  he  seemed  sud 
denly  to  see  before  him :  it  had  to  be  Old  Crow.  And  he 
slept,  and  in  the  morning  it  did  not  need  the  mottled  book 
at  his  bedside  to  remind  him.  Still  it  was  Old  Crow. 


OLD  CROW  269 

He  put  it  all  away  in  his  mind  to  think  over  later,  just 
as  Old  Crow  had  turned  aside  from  his  vision  for  the 
more  convincing  clearness  of  an  oblique  angle  upon  it, 
and  dressed  hastily.  He  got  out  of  the  house  without 
meeting  even  Charlotte,  and  was  about  crossing  the  road 
on  the  way  to  the  hut  when  he  saw  Tenney  coming,  axe 
and  dinner  pail  in  hand.  Raven  swerved  on  his  path, 
and  affected  to  be  looking  down  the  road.  He  could  not 
proceed  the  way  he  was  going.  Tenney's  mind  must  not 
be  drawn  toward  that  living  focus  by  even  the  most  frag 
mentary  hint.  Yet  if  Tira  was  still  there,  she  and  the 
child  must  be  fed.  After  his  glance  down  the  road  he 
turned  back  to  the  house,  nodding  at  Tenney  as  he  neared. 
But  Tenney  motioned  to  him. 

"Here,"  he  called  stridently.     "You  wait." 

Raven  halted  and  as  Tenney  was  approaching,  at  a 
quick  stride,  noted  how  queerly  he  was  hung.  It  was  like 
a  skeleton  walking,  the  dry  joints  acting  spasmodically. 
When  the  man  came  up  with  him,  he  saw  how  ravaged  his 
face  was,  and  yet  lighted  by  what  a  curious  eagerness. 
Ready,  he  hoped,  at  all  points  for  any  possible  attack 
involving  Tira,  Raven  still  waited,  and  the  question 
Tenney  shot  at  him  could  not  have  been  more  surprising: 

"Did  you  find  salvation?" 

Raven  stood  looking  at  him  for  an  instant,  and  suddenly 
he  remembered  Old  Crow,  who  had  accomplished  the  salva 
tion  of  a  sick  heart  and  bequeathed  the  treasure  to  him. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  more  tolerantly  than  he  had  ever  spoken 
to  Tenney.  "I  think  I  did." 

Was  it  his  imagination  that  Tenney  looked  disap 
pointed? 

"Last  night?"  the  man  insisted.  "Did  you  find  it  last 
night?  Through  me?" 

"No,"  said  Raven.     "I  didn't  find  it  through  you.1' 


270  OLD  CROW 

Tenney  was  ingenuously  taken  aback. 

"There  is  one  way,"  he  said,  "into  the  sheepfold — 
only  one." 

He  turned  about,  muttering,  and  Raven,  looking  after 
him,  thought  he  was  an  ugly  customer.  For  a  woman 
to  be  shut  up  alone  with  him,  her  young,  too,  to  defend ! 
It  was  like  being  jailed  with  an  irrational  beast.  But 
Tenney  paid  no  further  attention  to  him.  He  walked 
away,  swinging  his  dinner  pail,  down  across  the  meadow 
to  the  lower  woods,  and  Raven,  after  the  fringe  of  birches 
had  closed  upon  him,  hurried  off  to  the  hut.  He  did  not 
expect  to  find  her.  The  pail  in  Tenney's  hand  was  suffi 
cient  evidence,  even  if  the  man's  going  to  his  work  were 
not.  Tenney  would  never  have  abandoned  his  search  or 
his  waiting  for  her,  and  if  he  had,  he  would  not  have 
delayed  to  pack  a  dinner  pail.  The  hut  was  empty  of 
human  life,  but  the  bricks  were  warm.  She  could  not  have 
left  until  the  early  morning.  Mechanically  he  piled  kin 
dling  near  the  hearth.  But  curiously,  though  the  hut  was 
warm  not  only  with  the  fire  but  the  suggestion  of  her 
breathing  presence,  it  was  not  she  who  seemed  to  be  with 
him  but  Old  Crow. 

He  went  back  to  the  house  and  found  Amelia  in  trav 
eling  dress,  her  face  tuned  to  the  note  of  concentration 
when  something  was  to  be  done.  She  was  ready.  She 
had  the  appearance  of  the  traveler  needing  only  to  slip 
on  an  outer  garment  to  go,  not  merely  from  New  Hamp 
shire  down  to  Boston,  but  to  uncharted  fastnesses.  It 
meant,  he  found,  this  droll  look  of  being  prepared  for 
anything,  not  the  inconsiderable  journey  before  her  but  a 
new  enterprise  for  him.  And  he  would  have  to  be  per 
suaded  to  it.  Well,  she  knew  that.  She  met  him  in  the 
hall. 

"John,"  she  said,  with  the  firmness  of  her  tone  in  active 


OLD  CROW  271 

benevolences,  "I  have  asked  Jerry  to  take  me  to  the  train. 
I  want  you  to  go  with  me." 

"Me?"  said  Raven,  unaffectedly  surprised.  "What  for?" 

"For  several  things.  If  Dick  is  in  any  sort  of 
trouble " 

"He's  not,"  said  Raven.    "Take  my  word  for  that." 

"And,"  she  concluded,  "I  want  you  to  see  somebody." 

"Somebody?"  Raven  repeated.  He  put  his  hand  on 
her  shoulder,  smiling  down  at  her.  Milly  was  a  good  sort. 
It  was  too  bad  she  had  to  be,  like  so  many  women  benevo 
lence  mad,  so  disordered  in  her  meddling.  "I  suppose 
you  mean  an  alienist." 

She  nodded,  her  lips  compressed.  She  would  stick  at 
nothing. 

"Now  Milly,"  said  Raven,  "do  I  seem  to  you  in  the  least 
dotty?" 

Tears  came  into  her  eyes. 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  use  such  words,"  she  said  tremu 
lously.  It  meant  much  for  Milly  to  tremble.  "It's  like 
calling  that  dreadful  influenza  the  flu." 

Raven  was  reminded  of  the  old  man  down  the  road  who 
forbade  secular  talk  in  the  household  during  a  thunder 
shower.  It  "madded"  the  Almighty.  You  might  be  struck. 

"I  won't,"  he  said,  the  more  merciful  of  her  because  she 
was  on  the  point  of  going.  "And  I  won't  go  back  with 
you." 

"Will  you  come  later?"  she  persisted,  still  tremulous. 

"No,"  said  Raven,  "probably  not.  If  I  do,  I'll  let  you 
know.  And  you  mustn't  come  up  here  without  notifying 
me  well  in  advance." 

"That  shows —  "  she  began  impulsively.  "John,  that 
isn't  a  normal  thing  to  say :  to  expect  your  own  sister  to 
notify  you." 

"All  right,"   said  Raven   cheerfully.      "Then   I'm  not 


272  OLD  CROW 

normal.  The  funny  part  of  it  is,  I  don't  care  whether  I'm 
normal  or  not.  I've  got  too  many  other  things  to  think 
of.  Here's  Charlotte  with  your  brekky.  Come  on." 

In  the  two  hours  before  she  went,  he  was,  she  told  Dick 
afterward,  absolutely  scintillating.  She  never  knew  John 
could  be  so  brilliant.  He  talked  about  things  she  never 
knew  he  had  the  slightest  interest  in :  theosophy  and  fem 
inism  and  Americanization.  She  couldn't  help  wondering 
whether  he  was  trying  to  convince  her  of  his  mental 
soundness.  But  he  certainly  was  amazing.  Dick  received 
this  in  silence.  He  understood. 

It  was  true.  Raven  did  fill  the  time  from  a  racing  im 
petuosity,  only  slackened  when  Jerry  appeared  with  the 
pung.  Then  he  hurried  her  into  her  coat,  kissed  her 
warmly — and  she  had  to  comment  inwardly  that  she  had 
never  found  John  so  affectionate — and,  standing  bare 
headed  to  watch  her  away,  saluted  her  when  she  turned  at 
the  bend  in  the  road.  Then,  when  the  scene  was  empty  of 
her,  he  plunged  in,  past  Charlotte,  standing  with  hands 
rolled  in  her  apron,  snatched  his  cap,  and  hurried  up  the 
road  to  Nan. 


XXIV 

Raven,  relieved  of  his  hindering  Amelia,  felt  extraordi 
narily  gay.  He  went  fast  along  the  road,  warm  in  the 
deepening  sun,  and  saw  Nan  coming  toward  him.  He 
waved  his  cap  and  called  to  her: 

"She's  gone." 

"Who?"  Nan  was  coming  on  with  her  springing  stride, 
and  when  she  reached  him  she  looked  keenly  at  him,  add 
ing:  "What's  happened  to  you,  Rookie?" 

Nothing  had  happened  to  her,  he  could  see.  She  was 
always  like  a  piece  cut  out  of  the  morning  and  fitted  into 
any  part  of  the  day  she  happened  to  be  found  in :  always 
of  a  gallant  spirit,  always  wholesome  as  apples,  always 
ready.  This  was  not  altogether  youth.  It  was,  besides, 
something  notable  and  particular  which  was  Nan.  He 
laughed  out,  she  caught  his  mood  so  deftly. 

"Something  has  happened,"  he  said.  "First  place, 
Milly's  gone.  Second,  I've  found  Old  Crow." 

"You've  found  Old  Crow?  What  do  you  mean  by 
that?" 

"Can't  tell  you  now.   Wait  till  we  sit  down  together." 

"And  she's  truly  gone?" 

They  stood  there  in  the  road  as  if  Nan's  house  were  not 
at  hand ;  but  the  air  and  the  sun  were  pleasant  to  them. 

"Gone,  bag  and  baggage.  Dick  wired  and  ordered 
her  in  some  way  she  didn't  dare  ignore.  I  suspect  he  did 
it  to  save  me.  He's  a  good  boy." 

"He  is  a  good  boy,"  said  Nan.  There  was  a  reminiscent 

273 


274  OLD  CROW 

look  in  her  eyes.  "But  he's  a  very  little  one.  Were  we 
ever  so  young,  Rookie,  you  and  I?" 

"You !" 

"Yes.  I'm  a  sphinx  compared  with  Dick.  I  didn't  tell 
you  last  night,  there  was  so  much  else  to  say,  but  I  had  a 
letter  from  him,  returned  to  Boston  from  New  York.  He 
assumed,  you  know,  if  I  wasn't  in  Boston  I'd  gone  to  the 
Seaburys'.  So  he  wrote  there." 

"What's  he  want?" 

Nan  hesitated  a  moment.     Then  she  said: 

"It's  a  pretty  serious  letter,  Rookie.  I  suppose  it's  a 
love-letter.' 

"Don't  you  know?" 

"Yes,  I  suppose  I  know.  But  it's  so  childish.  He's 
furious,  then  he's  almost  on  his  knees  begging,  and  then 
he  goes  back  to  being  mad  again.  Rookie,  he's  so 
young." 

"When  it  comes  to  that,"  said  Raven,  "you're  young, 
too.  I've  told  you  that  before." 

"Young !  Oh !  but  not  that  way.  I  couldn't  beg  for 
anything.  I  couldn't  cry  if  I  didn't  get  it.  I  don't  know 
what  girls  used  to  do,  but  we're  different,  Rookie,  we  that 
have  been  over  there." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "but  you  mustn't  let  it  do  too  much 
to  you.  You  mustn't  let  it  take  away  your  youth." 

Nan  shook  her  head. 

"Youth  isn't  so  very  valuable,"  she  said,  "not  that  part 
of  it.  There's  lots  of  misery  in  it,  Rookie.  Don't  you 
know  there  is?" 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "I  know."  Suddenly  he  remembered 
Anne  and  the  bonds  she  had  laid  on  him.  Had  he  not  suf 
fered  them,  in  a  dumb  way,  finding  no  force  within  him 
self  to  strike  them  off?  Had  he  been  a  coward,  a  dull 
fellow  tied  to  women's  restraining  wills?  And  he  had 


OLD  CHOW  275 

by  no  means  escaped  yet.  Wasn't  Anne  inexorably 
by  his  side  now,  when  he  turned  for  an  instant  from 
the  problem  of  Tira,  saying  noiselessly,  this  invisible 
force  that  was  Anne :  "What  are  you  going  to  do  about 
my  last  wish,  my  last  command?  You  are  thinking  about 
Nan,  about  that  strange  woman,  about  yourself.  Think 
about  me."  But  he  deliberately  summoned  his  mind  from 
the  accusing  vision  of  her,  and  turned  it  to  Nan.  "Then," 
he  said,  "there  doesn't  seem  to  be  much  hope  for  Dick, 
poor  chap !" 

"Doesn't  there?"  she  inquired,  a  certain  indignant  pas 
sion  in  her  voice.  "Anyway,  there's  no  hope  for  me.  I'd 
like  to  marry  Dick.  I'd  like  to  feel  perfectly  crazy  to 
marry  him.  He  won't  write  his  poetry  always.  That's  to 
the  good,  anyhow.  If  I  don't  marry  him  I  shall  be  a 
miserable  old  thing,  more  and  more  positive,  more  and 
more  like  all  the  women  of  the  family,  the  ones  that  didn't 
marry" — and  they  both  knew  Aunt  Anne  was  in  her 
mind — "drying  rose  leaves  and  hunting  up  genealogical 
trash." 

"But,  my  own  child,"  said  Raven  in  a  surge  of  pity  for 
her,  as  if  some  clearest  lens  had  suddenly  brought  her 
nearer  him,  "you  don't  have  to  marry  Dick  to  get  away 
from  that.  You'll  simply  marry  somebody  else." 

"No,"  said  Nan,  "you  know  I  sha'n't." 

"Then,"  said  Raven,  "there  is  somebody  else." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"I'm  an  odd  number,  Rookie,"  she  said,  with  a  bitter 
ness  he  found  foreign  to  her.  "All  those  old  stories  of 
kindred  souls  may  be  true,  but  they're  not  true  for  me." 

"You  have  probably,"  said  Raven,  a  sharp  light  now  on 
her,  bringing  out  the  curves  and  angles  of  her  positive 
mind,  "you  have  done  some  perverse  thing  to  send  him  off, 
and  you  won't  move  a  finger  to  bring  him  back." 


276  OLD  CROW 

Nan  laughed.  She  was  no  longer  bitter.  This  was 
the  child  he  knew. 

"Rookie,"  she  said,  "you  are  nearer  an  absolute  fool 
than  any  human  being  I  ever  saw.  If  I  wanted  a  man 
back,  it's  likely  I  could  get  him.  Most  of  us  can.  But 
do  you  think  I  would?" 

"Then  you're  proud,  sillykins." 

"I'm  not  proud,"  said  Nan — and  yet  proudly.  "If  I 
loved  anybody,  I'd  let  him  walk  over  me.  That's  what 
Charlotte  would  say.  Can't  you  hear  her?  It  isn't  for 
my  sake.  It's  for  his.  Do  you  think  I'd  bamboozle  him 
and  half  beckon  and  half  persuade,  the  way  women  do, 
and  trap  him  into  the  great  enchantment?  It  is  an  en 
chantment.  You  know  it  is.  But  I'd  rather  he'd  keep  his 
grip  on  things — on  himself — and  walk  away  from  me,  if 
that's  where  it  took  him.  I'd  rather  he'd  walk  straight  off 
to  somebody  else,  and  break  his  heart,  if  it  came  that 
way." 

"Good  Lord,  Nan,"  said  Raven,  "where  do  you  get 
such  thoughts?" 

"Get  them  ?"  she  repeated.  "I  got  them  from  you  first. 
You've  been  a  slave  all  your  life.  Don't  you  know  you 
have?  Don't  you  know  you  had  cobwebs  spun  round  you, 
round  and  round,  till  she  had  you  tight,  hand  and  foot, 
not  hers  but  so  you  couldn't  walk  off  to  anybody  else? 
And  even  now,  after  her  death " 

"Stop,"  said  Raven.     "That's  enough,  Nan." 

Again  Anne  Hamilton  was  beside  them  on  the  wintry 
road,  and  they  were  hurting  her  inexpressibly. 

"That's  it,"  said  Nan.  "You're  afraid  she'll  hear." 

"If  I  am,"  said  'Raven,  "it's  not "  There  he 

stopped. 

"No,"  said  Nan.  She  had  relented.  Her  eyes  were 
soft.  "You're  not  afraid  of  her.  But  you  are  afraid  of 


OLD  CROW  277 

hurting  her.  And  even  that's  weak,  Rookie — in  a  man. 
Don't  be  so  pitiful.  Leave  it  to  the  women.'' 

Raven  laughed  a  little  now.  Again  she  seemed  a  child, 
crying  after  the  swashbuckling  hero  modern  man  has  put 
into  the  discard,  where  apparently  he  has  to  stay,  except 
now  and  then  when  he  ventures  out  and  struts  a  little. 
But  it  avails  him  nothing.  Somebody  laughs,  and  back 
he  has  to  go. 

"I  am  pretty  stupid,"  he  said.  "But  never  mind  about 
an  old  stager  like  me.  Don't  be  afraid  of  showing  him — 
the  man,  I  mean — all  your  charm.  Don't  be  afraid  of 
going  to  his  head.  You've  got  enough  to  justify  every 
possible  hope  you  could  hold  out  to  him.  You're  the 
loveliest — Nan,  you're  the  loveliest  thing  I  ever  saw." 

"The  loveliest?"  said  Nan,  again  recklessly.  "Lovelier 
than  Tira?" 

For  an  instant  she  struck  him  dumb.  Was  Tira  so 
lovely?  To  him  certainly  she  had  a  beauty  almost  inex 
pressible.  But  was  it  really  inherent  in  her?  Or  was  it 
something  in  the  veil  he  found  about  her,  that  haze  of  hope 
less  suffering? 

"Do  you  think  she's  beautiful?" 

His  voice  was  keen ;  curiosity  had  thinned  it  to  an  edge. 
Nan  answered  it  with  exactness. 

"I  think  she's  the  most  beautiful  thing  I  ever  saw.  She 
doesn't  know  it.  If  she  did,  she'd  probably  wave  her  hair 
and  put  on  strange  chiffons,  what  Charlotte  calls  dewdads. 
She'd  have  to  be  the  cleverest  woman  on  earth  to  resist 
them.  And  because  she's  probably  never  been  an  inch  out 
of  this  country  neighborhood,  she'd  rig  herself  up — Char 
lotte  again ! — in  the  things  the  girls  like  round  here.  But 
she  either  doesn't  know  her  power  or  she  doesn't  care." 

"I'm  inclined  to  think,"  said  Raven  slowly,  "she  never 
has  looked  at  herself  in  that  way.  It  has  brought  her 


278  OLD  CROW 

things  she  doesn't  want,  things  that  made  her  suffer.  And 
she's  worked  so  hard  trying  to  manage  the  whole  business 
— life  and  her  sufferings — she  hasn't  had  time  to  lay  much 
stress  on  her  looks." 

"It's  all  so  strange,"  said  Nan,  as  if  the  barriers  were 
down  and  she  wanted  to  indicate  something  hardly  clear 
to  herself.  "You  see,  she  isn't  merely  beautiful.  Most  of 
us  look  like  what  we  are.  We're  rather  nice  looking,  like 
me,  or  we're  plain.  But  she  Hakes  back,'  as  Charlotte 
would  say.  She  reminds  you  of  things,  pictures,  and 
music,  and  dead  queens — isn't  there  a  verse  about  'queens 
that  died  young  and  fair'? — and — 0  heavens,  Rookie!  I 
can't  say  it — but  all  the  old  hungers  and  happinesses,  the 
whole  business." 

"I  wonder,"  said  Raven  impetuously,  "if  you  think  she's 
got  any  mind  at  all.  Or  whether  it's  nothing  but  line  and 
color?" 

Nan  shook  her  head. 

"She's  got  something  better  than  a  mind.  She  has  a 
faithful  heart.  And  if  a  man — a  man  I  cared  about — 
got  bewitched  by  her,  I'd  tell  him  to  snatch  her  up 
and  run  off  with  her,  and  even  if  he  found  she  was  hol 
low  inside,  he'd  have  had  a  minute  worth  living  for,  and 
he  could  take  his  punishment  and  say  'twas  none  too 
much." 

"You'd  tell  him !"  Raven  suggested,  smiling  at  her  heat 
and  yet  moved  by  it.  "You  weren't  going  to  fetter  your 
man  by  telling  him  anything." 

"No,"  said  Nan,  returned  to  her  composure,  which  was 
of  a  careless  sort,  "I  shouldn't,  really.  I'd  hope  though. 
I'd  allow  myself  to  hope  he'd  snatch  her  away  from  that 
queer  devil's  darning  needle  she's  married  to,  and  buy  her  a 
divorce  and  marry  her." 

"You  would,  indeed !     Then  you  don't  know  love,  my 


OLD  CROW  279 

Nan,  for  you  don't  know  jealousy.  And  with  a  mystery 
woman  like  that,  wouldn't  the  man  be  forever  wondering 
what's  behind  that  smile  of  hers?  Tenney  wonders.  It 
isn't  that  flashy  fellow  at  the  prayer-meeting  that  makes 
him  wonder.  It's  the  woman  herself.  Yet  she's  simplicity 
itself — she's  truth — but  no,  Nan,  you  don't  know 
jealousy." 

"Don't  I?"  said  Nan,  unperturbed.  "You're  mighty 
clever,  aren't  you,  Rookie?  But  I  tell  you  again  I'd 
rather  leave  my  man  to  live  his  life  as  he  wants  it  than 
live  it  with  him.  Now" — she  threw  off  the  moment  as  if 
she  had  permanently  done  with  it — "now,  I  went  to  see 
her  this  morning." 

"You  did?     What  for?" 

"It  was  so  horrible  last  night,"  said  Nan.  "Hideous ! 
There  was  that  creature  sitting  there  beside  her,  that  per 
fumery  man." 

"Perfumery?" 

"Yes.  He  smelled  like  the  soap  the  boys  used  to  buy, 
the  ones  that  lived  'down  the  road  a  piece.'  He  frightened 
her,  just  his  sitting  down  beside  her.  And  it  put  some 
kind  of  a  devil  into  that  awful  Tenney.  I  thought  about 
her  all  night,  and  this  morning  I  went  over  and  asked  her 
to  go  back  with  me  now,  while  Tenney 's  away  chopping. 
I  told  her  I'd  help  her  pack,  and  Jerry'd  take  us  to  the 
train." 

"What  did  she  say?" 

"Nothing.  Oh,  yes,  she  did."  Nan  laughed,  in  the  irri 
tation  of  it.  "She  said  I  was  real  good.  Said  Israel  was 
going  to  kill  soon." 

"Kill?" 

"Hogs.  There  were  two.  They'd  weigh  three  hundred 
apiece.  It  was  quite  a  busy  season,  trying  out  and  all, 
and  no  time  for  her  to  be  away." 


280  OLD  CROW 

It  was  irresistible.  They  both  laughed.  They  had  been 
dowering  her  with  the  grace  of  Helen,  and  now  she  stood 
before  them  inexorably  bent  on  trying  out. 

"I  gather,"  said  Nan,  rather  drily,  "you're  going  over 
to  see  her  yourself." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.  "But  not  till  I've  seen  you.  You 
ran  away  from  Milly.  Now  Milly's  gone,  and  you're  corn 
ing  back." 

Her  eyes  roved  from  him  to  the  steadfast  green  of 
the  slope  across  the  road.  She  was  moved.  Her  mouth 
twitched  at  the  tight  corners,  her  eyes  kindled. 

"It  would  be  fun,"  said  she. 

"Besides,  think  how  silly  to  keep  Charlotte  provision 
ing  you  and  tugging  over  to  spend  nights,  poor  Char 
lotte  !" 

"I  really  stayed,"  said  Nan,  temporizing,  "for  this  Tira 
of  yours — and  Tenney's." 

This  form  of  statement  sounded  malicious  to  her  own 
ears,  but  not  to  his.  Sometimes  Nan  wished  he  were  not 
quite  so  "simple  honest."  It  was,  she  suspected,  the 
woman's  part — her  own — to  be  unsuspecting  and  obsti 
nately  good. 

"But  if,"  she  continued,  "she  won't  have  anything  to 
do  with  you,  I  might  as  well  go  back  to  town." 

"Not  yet,"  said  Raven.  "I've  got  something  to  tell 
you." 

"What's  it  about?" 

"Old  Crow." 

Nan  thought  a  minute. 

"All  right,"  she  said.  She  looked  at  once  unreasonably 
happy,  like,  he  extravagantly  thought,  a  beautiful  statue 
with  the  fountain  of  life  playing  over  it.  "I'll  come — for 
Old  Crow." 

"Pick  up  your  duds,"  said  he,  "and  I'll  go  along  and 


OLD  CROW  281 

see  if  I  can  make  anything  out  of  her.     You  be  ready 
when  I  come  back." 

Nan  looked  after  him  and  thought  how  fast  he  walked 
and  how  Tira,  as  well  as  Tira's  troubles,  drew  him.  If 
Tira  knew  the  power  of  her  own  beauty,  how  terribly 
decisive  a  moment  this  would  be  in  the  great  dark  kitchen 
Nan  had  just  left!  And  yet  if  Tira,  having  looked  in 
her  mirror  and  the  mirror  of  life,  were  cruelly  sophisti 
cated  enough  to  play  that  part,  the  man  would  be  given 
odds  to  resist  her.  He  was  no  ingenuous  youth. 


XXV 

Raven  walked  up  to  the  side  door  of  the  house  and 
knocked.  She  came  at  once,  her  face  blank  of  any  expec 
tation,  though  at  seeing  him  she  did  stand  a  little  tenser 
and  her  lips  parted  with  a  quicker  breath. 

"Good  morning,"  said  he.  "Aren't  you  going  to  ask 
me  in?" 

"Oh!"  breathed  Tira.  It  seemed  she  did  actually  con 
sider  keeping  him  out.  "I  don't  know,"  she  blundered. 
"I'm  alone,  but  I  never  feel  certain — 

She  never  felt  certain,  he  concluded,  whether  her  peril 
might  not  be  upon  her.  But  he  had  a  sense  of  present 
security.  He  had  seen  Tenney  disappearing  inside  the 
fringe  of  woods. 

"Let  me  come  in,"  he  said  quietly.  "I  want  to  talk  to 
you.  It's  cold  for  you  out  here." 

She  moved  aside  and  he  followed  her  to  the  kitchen. 
The  room  was  steaming  with  warmth,  the  smell  of  apple 
sauce  and  a  boiling  ham.  Her  moulding  board,  dusted 
with  flour,  was  on  the  table,  and  her  yellow  mixing  bowl 
beside  it.  Raven  did  not  think  what  household  duties  he 
might  be  delaying,  but  the  scene  was  sweet  to  him:  a 
haven  of  homely  comfort  where  she  ought  to  find  herself 
secure.  There  was,  in  the  one  casual  glance  he  took,  no 
sign  of  the  child,  and  he  was  glad.  That  strange,  silent 
witness,  since  Nan  and  Charlotte  had  both,  by  a  phrase, 
banished  the  little  creature  into  an  alien  room  of  its  own, 
had  begun  to  embarrass  him.  He  wanted  to  talk  to  Tira 
alone. 

282 


OLD  CROW  283 

"Baby's  in  the  bedroom,"  said  Tira,  answering-  his 
thought.  "When  he's  in  here,  I  wake  him  up  steppin' 
round." 

Raven  stood  waiting  for  her  to  sit,  and  she  drew  for 
ward  a  chair,  placing  it  to  give  her  an  oblique  view  from 
the  window.  Having  seated  herself,  she  asked  him,  with 
a  shy  hospitality : 

"Won't  you  set?" 

He  drew  a  chair  nearer  her  and  his  eyes  sought  her  in 
the  light  of  what  Nan  had  said.  Yes,  she  was  beautiful. 
Her  blue  calico,  faded  to  a  softness  suited  to  old  pictures, 
answered  the  blue  of  her  eyes.  The  wistful  look  of  her 
face  had  deepened.  It  was  all  over  a  gentle  interrogation 
of  sweet  patience  and  unrest. 

"So  Nan  came  over,"  he  began.  It  seemed  the  only 
way  to  pierce  her  reserve,  at  once,  by  a  straight  shaft. 
"You  wouldn't  do  what  she  wanted  you  to." 

She  shook  her  head. 

"Why  wouldn't  you?"  he  urged,  and  then  she  did  an 
swer,  not  ungraciously,  but  with  a  shy  courtesy : 

"I  didn't  feel  to." 

"It  would  be" — he  hesitated  for  a  word  and  found  an 
ineffectual  one — "nice,  if  you  could  talk  to  her.  She 
wouldn't  tell." 

"I  don't,"  said  Tira,  still  with  the  same  gentle  obstin 
acy,  "hold  much  with  talkin'." 

Raven,  because  he  had  her  to  himself  and  the  time  was 
short,  determined  not  to  spare  her  for  lack  of  a  search 
ing  word. 

"Tira,"  he  said,  and  she  smiled  a  little,  mysteriously  to 
him  but  really  because  she  loved  to  hear  him  use  her  name, 
"things  aren't  getting  any  better  here.  They're  getting 
worse." 

"Oh,  no,"  she  hastened  to  say.     "They're  better." 


OLD  CROW 

"Only  last  night  you  had  to  run  away  from  him." 
"Things  are  ever  so  much  better,"  said  Tira,  smiling  at 
him,  with  a  radiance  of  conviction  that  lighted  her  face 
to  a  new  sort  of  beauty.     "They're  all  right.     I've  found 
the  Lord." 

What  could  he  say?  Old  Crow  had  besought  him,  too, 
to  abandon  fear  in  the  certainty  of  a  safe  universe  speak 
ing  through  the  symbols  man  could  understand.  He  tried 
to  summon  something  that  would  reach  and  move  her. 

"What  if  I  were  drowning,"  he  said.  "Suppose  I  knew 
I  should" — he  sought  for  the  accepted  phrase — "go  to 
heaven,  if  I  drowned.  Do  you  think  I  should  be  right  in 
not  trying  to  save  myself?" 

Tira  knit  her  brows.  It  was  only  for  an  instant, 
though. 

"No,"  she  said.  "Certain  you'd  have  to  save  your 
self.  You'd  have  to  try  every  way  you  knew.  That's 
what  I've  done.  I'm  tryin'  every  way  I  know." 

"I'm  telling  you  another  way,"  said  Raven  sharply. 
"I'm  telling  you  you  can't  live  with  a  crazy  man— 

"Oh,  no,"  she  interrupted  earnestly.  "He  ain't  that. 
He  has  spells,  that's  all." 

"I'm  not  even  asking  you  to  go  away  with  me.  I'm 
asking  you  to  go  with  that  good  woman  over  there." 
Somehow  he  felt  this  was  more  appealing  than  the  name 
of  Nan.  "I  trust  her  as  I  do  myself,  more  than  myself. 
It's  to  save  your  life,  Tira,  your  life  and  the  baby's  life." 
She  was  looking  at  him  out  of  eyes  warm  with  the 
whole  force  of  her  worshiping  love  and  gratitude. 

"No,"  she  said  softly.  "I  can't  go.  I  ain't  got  a  word 
to  say  ag'inst  her,"  she  added  eagerly.  "She's  terrible 
good.  Anybody  could  see  that.  But  I  can't  talk  to  folks. 
I  can't  let  'em  know.  Not  anybody,"  she  added  softly, 
as  if  to  herself,  "but  you." 


OLD  CROW  285 

Raven  forbade  himself  to  be  moved  by  this. 

"Then,"  he  said,  "you'll  have  to  talk  to  other  folks  you 
may  not  like  so  well.  I  shall  complain  of  him.  I  shall  be 
a  witness  to  what  I've  seen  and  what  you've  told  me.  I've 
threatened  you  with  that  before,  but  now  it's  got  to  be 
done." 

"No,"  said  Tira,  trying,  he  could  see,  through  every 
fiber  of  will  in  her  to  influence  him.  But  never  by  her 
beauty:  she  was  game  there.  "You  wouldn't  tell  what 
I've  said  to  you.  You  couldn't.  'Twas  said  to  you  an" 
nobody  else.  It  couldn't  ha'  been  said  to  anybody  else 
on  this  livin'  earth." 

Here  was  a  spark  of  passion,  as  if  she  struck  it  out  un 
knowingly.  But  he  must  not  be  moved,  and  by  every 
means  he  would  move  her. 

"What  is  there,"  he  said,  in  the  roughness  of  an  emo 
tion  she  saw  plainly,  "what  is  there  I  wouldn't  do  to  save 
your  life?  To  save  you  from  being  knocked  about, 
touched" — he  was  about  to  add  "violated,"  the  purity  of 
her  seemed  so  virginal,  but  he  stopped  and  she  went  on : 

"It's  just  as  I  told  you  before.  If  they  asked  me 
questions,  I  should  say  'twa'n't  so.  I  should  say  you 
thought  'twas  so,  but  'twa'n't.  I  should  say  you  wrote 
books  an'  you  got  up  things,  I  guessed.  It  made  you 
wrong  in  your  head." 

Old  Crow!  The  innocent  observers  of  his  life  and  Old 
Crow's  were  in  a  mysterious  conspiracy  to  prove  them 
both  unsound.  He  laughed  out  suddenly  and  she  looked 
at  him,  surprised. 

"Do  you  know  why  I  would?"  she  continued  earnestly. 
"Because  he  never'd  overlook  it  in  this  world.  If  they 
hauled  him  up  before  a  judge,  an'  you  testified,  the  min 
ute  they  let  him  go  he'd  take  it  out  o'  you.  You'd  be  in 
more  danger'n  I  be  now.  Besides,  I  ain't  in  any  danger. 


286  OLD  CROW 

I  tried  it  this  mornin'  an'  I  found  out."  He  sat  with 
knitted  brows  and  dry  lips  waiting  for  her  to  go  on. 
"Last  night,"  she  said,  "after  you  went  down  from  the 
shack,  I  couldn't  sleep.  I  never  closed  my  eyes.  But  I 
wa'n't  lonesome  nor  afraid.  I  was  thinkin'  o'  what  you 
said.  He  was  there.  Jesus  Christ  was  there.  An'  I  knew 
'twas  so  because  you  said  so.  Besides,  I  felt  it.  An'  'long 
about  three  I  got  up  an'  covered  the  coals  an'  took  baby 
an'  come  down  along  home.  For,  I  says,  if  He  was  there 
with  me  in  the  shack,  He'll  go  with  me  when  I  go,  an'  my 
place  is  to  home.  An'  there  was  a  light  in  the  kitchen, 
an'  I  looked  in  through  the  winder  an'  Isr'el  was  there. 
He  was  kneelin'  before  a  chair,  an'  his  head  was  on  his 
hands  an'  through  the  winder  I  heard  him  groan.  An'  I 
stepped  in  an'  he  got  up  off  his  knees  an'  stood  lookin'  at 
me  kinder  wild,  an'  he  says:  'Where  you  been?'  An'  I 
says :  'No  matter  where  I  been.  Wherever  I  been  He's 
come  home  with  me.'  An'  he  says,  'He?  Who  is  it  now?' 
An'  I  felt  as  if  I  could  laugh,  it  was  so  pleasant  to  me,  an' 
seemed  to  smooth  everything  out.  An'  I  says,  'Jesus 
Christ.  He's  come  home  with  me.'  An'  he  looked  at  me 
kinder  scairt,  an'  says :  'I  should  think  you  was  out  o' 
your  head.'  An'  I  went  round  the  room  an'  kinder  got  it 
in  order  an'  brashed  up  the  fire  an'  he  set  an'  looked  at 
me.  An'  I  begun  to  sing.  I  sung  Coronation — it  stayed 
in  my  mind  from  the  meetin' — I  dunno  when  I've  sung  be 
fore — an'  he  set  an'  watched  me.  An'  I  got  us  an  early 
breakfast  an'  we  eat,  but  he  kep'  watchin'  me.  I'd  ketch 
him  doin'  it  while  he  stirred  his  tea.  'Twas  as  if  he  was 
afraid.  I  wouldn't  have  him  feel  that  way.  You  don't 
s'pose  he  is  afraid  o'  me,  do  you?" 

This  she  poured  out  in  a  haste  unlike  her  usual  halting 
utterance.  But  there  was  a  steadiness  in  it,  a  calm.  He 
shook  his  head. 


OLD  CROW  287 

"No,"  lie  said.  "I  wish  he  were  afraid  of  you."  He 
wanted  to  leave  her  the  comfort  of  belief  and  at  the  same 
time  waken  her  to  the  actual  perils  of  her  life.  "Tira,"  he 
said,  looking  into  her  eyes  and  trying  to  impress  her  with 
the  force  of  his  will,  "he  isn't  right,  you  know,  not  right 
in  his  head,  or  he  never  would  behave  to  you  as  he  does. 
Any  man  in  his  senses  would  know  you  were  true  to  him. 
He  doesn't,  and  that's  why  he's  so  dangerous." 

A  convulsive  movement  passed  over  her  face,  slight  as  a 
twitching  of  muscles  could  well  be.  The  sweat  broke  out 
on  her  chin. 

"No,"  she  said,  "any  man  wouldn't  know.  Because  it's 
true.  That  man  that  come  into  this  house  last  night  an' 
set  down  side  o'  me — an'  glad  enough  he  was  there  hap 
pened  to  be  that  chair  left,  same  as  if  I'd  left  it  for  him — 
he's  bad  all  through,  an'  every  man  in  this  township  knows 
it,  an'  they  know  how  I  know  it,  an'  how  I  found  it  out." 
The  drops  on  her  forehead  had  wet  the  curling  rings  of 
her  hair  and  she  put  up  her  hand  and  swept  them  impa 
tiently  away.  Her  eyes,  large  in  their  agonized  entreaty, 
were  on  Raven's,  and  he  suffered  for  her  as  it  was  when 
he  had  seen  her  at  the  moments  of  her  flight  into  the 
woods.  And  now  he  seemed  to  see,  not  her  alone,  but 
Nan,  not  a  shred  of  human  pathos  that  had  been  tossed 
from  hand  to  hot  hand,  but  something  childlike  and  in 
violate.  And  that  was  how  he  let  himself  speak. 

"But,  dear  child,"  he  said,  "Tenney  knows  how  faithful 
you  are.  He  knows  if  you  hadn't  loved  him  you  wouldn't 
have  married  him.  And  he  knows  if  you  love  anybody, 
you're  true  through  everything." 

"That's  it,"  she  said  loudly,  in  a  tone  that  echoed 
strangely  in  the  great  kitchen.  "That's  it." 

He  knew  what  she  meant.  If  she  loved  the  man,  she 
could  convince  him,  mad  as  he  was.  But  she  did  not  love 


288  OLD  CROW 

him.  She  was  merely  clinging  to  him  with  all  the 
strength  of  her  work-toughened  hands. 

"But  talk  to  him,"  he  insisted.  "Show  him  how  well 
you  mean  toward  him." 

"I  can't,"  she  said.  "I  never've  talked  to  anybody, 
long  as  I  lived.  I  git" — she  paused  for  a  word  and  ended 
in  a  dash :  "I  git  all  froze  up." 

She  sat  staring  at  him,  as  if  her  mind  were  tied  into 
knots,  as  if  she  could  neither  untie  them,  nor  conceive  of 
anybody's  doing  it.  But  he  could  not  know  just  what  sort 
of  turmoil  was  in  her  nor  how  it  was  so  strange  to  her 
that  she  felt  no  mental  strength  to  meet  it.  In  the  instinct 
to  talk  to  him,  that  new  impulse  born  out  of  the  first 
human  companionship  she  had  ever  had,  she  felt  strange 
troubles  within  her  mind,  an  anguish  of  desire,  formless 
and  untrained.  She  was  like  a  child  who  stretches  out 
arms  to  something  it  dearly  longs  for  and  finds  its  fingers 
will  not  close  on  it.  She  had  never,  before  knowing  him, 
felt  the  least  hunger  to  express  anything  that  did  not  lie 
within  the  small  circle  of  her  little  vocabulary.  But  her 
mind  was  waking,  stretching  itself  toward  another  mind, 
and  suffering  from  its  own  impotence. 

"O  God !"  she  said,  in  a  low  tone,  and  then  clapped  her 
hand  over  her  mouth,  because  she  had  not  meant  to  speak 
that  name. 

There  came  a  knock  at  the  door.  Instantly  the  look 
of  life  ebbed  from  her  face.  It  assumed  at  once  its  mask 
of  stolid  calm.  She  got  up  and  went  to  the  door  and 
Raven,  waiting  for  her  to  come  back,  remembered  ab 
sently  he  had  heard  the  clang  of  bells.  Visualizing  her 
face  as  she  had  talked  to  him,  trying  to  understand  her  at 
every  point,  the  more  as  she  could  not  explain  herself,  he 
was  suddenly  find  sharply  recalled.  He  heard  her  voice. 

"No,"   she   cried,    so   distinctly    that   the   sound   came 


OLD  CROW  289 

through  the  crack  of  the  door  she  had  left  ajar.  "No,  no, 
I  tell  you.  You  never' \v  sti-pped  foot  into  this  house  by 
my  will,  an',  so  long  as  I'm  in  it,  you  never  shall." 

Raven  rose  and  went  to  the  door.  He  had  not  stopped 
to  think  what  he  should  find,  but  at  least  it  was,  from  her 
tone,  a  menace  of  some  sort.  There  stood  Eugene  Mar 
tin,  in  his  fur  coat,  his  florid  extravagance  of  scarf  and 
pin,  on  his  face  the  ironic  smile  adapted  to  his  precon 
ceived  comedy  with  Tira.  Martin,  hearing  the  step  be 
hind  her,  started,  unprepared.  He  had  passed  Tenney, 
slowly  making  his  way  homeward,  and  counted  on  a  few 
minutes'  speech  with  her  and  a  quick  exit,  for  his  butt, 
the  fool  of  a  husband,  to  see.  But  as  Raven  appeared,  the 
fellow's  face  broke  up  in  a  flouting  amusement.  Here  was 
another,  the  satiric  lips  were  ready  to  swear.  Deepest 
distrust  of  Tira  shone  forth  in  the  half  smile ;  a  low  com 
munity  of  mean  understanding  was  in  his  following  glance 
at  Raven.  Pie  burst  into  a  loud  laugh,  took  off  his  hat 
and  made  Tira  an  exaggerated  bow. 

"Don't  mention  it,"  he  said.  "Didn't  know  you  had 
company.  Wouldn't  think  o'  comin'  in." 

He  turned  away,  his  shoulders  shaking  with  ostenta 
tious  mirth.  It  was  all  in  a  minute,  and  Raven's  following- 
act,  quite  unreasoned,  also  occupied  a  minute.  He  put 
Tira  aside,  stepped  out  after  Martin  and  walked  behind 
him  down  the  path.  When  Martin  reached  the  sleigh, 
Raven  was  at  his  side.  Martin  had  ceased  shaking  his 
shoulders  in  that  fictitious  mirth.  Now  in  that  last  mo 
ment,  it  seemed,  he  took  cognizance  of  Raven,  and  turned, 
apprehension,  in  spite  of  him,  leaping  to  his  face.  Raven, 
still  with  no  set  purpose,  grasped  him  by  the  collar  with 
one  hand  and  with  the  other  reached  for  the  whip  in  the 
sleigh.  It  was  over  quickly.  Raven  remembered  after 
ward  that  the  horse,  startled  by  the  swish  of  the  blows, 


290  OLD  CROW 

jumped  aside  and  that  he  called  out  to  him.  He  did  not 
propose  depriving  Martin  of  the  means  of  exit.  The  fel 
low  did  not  meet  judgment  lying  down.  He  did  a  wild 
feat  of  struggling,  but  he  was  soft  in  every  muscle,  a 
mean  antagonist.  The  act  over,  Raven  released  him, 
with  an  impetus  that  sent  him  staggering,  set  the  whip 
in  the  socket  and  turned  back  to  the  house.  At  that 
moment  he  saw  Tenney  coming  along  the  road,  not  with 
his  usual  hurried  stride,  but  slowly,  his  head  lifted,  his 
eyes  upon  the  figures  at  his  gate.  Raven  recoiled  from 
the  possibility  of  a  three-cornered  wrangle  when  Tenney 
also  should  reach  the  scene.  It  was  an  impossible  predica 
ment.  Not  for  himself :  he  was  never  troubled  by  any  ham 
pering  sense  of  personal  dignity,  but  for  Tira,  who  stood 
in  silence  watching  them.  She  had  advanced  a  few  steps 
into  the  snowy  path  and  waited,  immovable,  the  light 
breeze  lifting  her  rings  of  hair.  To  Raven,  in  the  one 
glance  he  gave  her,  she  was  like  a  Fate,  choosing  neither 
good  nor  ill,  but  watching  the  even  course  of  time.  If 
Martin  saw  Tenney,  he  was  not  going  to  linger  for  any 
problematic  issue.  He  stepped  into  the  sleigh  and,  with 
out  drawing  the  fur  robe  over  his  knees,  took  up  the  reins. 
His  face,  turned  upon  Raven,  was  distorted  with  rage. 

"That's  assault,"  he  called  to  him,  "assault  an'  battery. 
I'll  have  the  law  on  you  an'  she's  my  witness." 

"Stop!"  called  Tira.  She  came  down  the  path  with 
long  strides,  her  garments  blowing  back.  At  three  paces 
from  the  sleigh  she  halted  and  called  to  him  in  a  voice  so 
clear  and  unrestrained  that  Raven  thought  Tenney,  com 
ing  on  with  his  jerky  action,  might  also  have  heard  it. 

"You  stir  a  step  to  git  the  law  on  him  an'  I'll  tell  what 
I  know.  What  did  I  find  out  about  you?  The  money 
stole  out  o'  the  box  after  they  had  the  raffle  for  the  War, 
the  deed  under  old  lady  Blaisdell's  feather  bed,  because  it 


OLD  CROW  291 

wa'n't  recorded  an'  it  left  you  with  the  right  an'  title  to 
that  forty  feet  o'  land.  Five  counts!"  She  held  up  her 
left  hand  and  told  off  one  finger  after  the  other.  "I've 
got  'em  all  down  in  my  mind,  an'  there  they've  been  ever 
since  I  left  you.  What  d'  I  leave  you  for?  Not  because 
you  treated  me  like  a  dog,  whenever  the  fit  was  on  ye, 
but  because  you  was  meaner'n  dirt." 

He  sat  there,  the  reins  gathered  in  his  hand,  staring  at 
her,  his  face  stiffened  in  a  reflex  of  the  cold  passion  of 
hers.  Upon  her  last  word,  he  called  to  the  horse  with  an 
oath  as  if  it  had  been  the  beast  that  offended  him,  turned 
the  sleigh  and  drove  off.  Tenney,  breathless,  was  now 
on  the  scene.  His  thin  lips  curled  and  drew  back,  the 
snarl  of  the  angry  feline. 

"Two  on  ye,"  he  said  to  Raven.  "Come  to  blows  over 
her,  have  ye?  An'  you're  on  top." 

Raven  turned  to  Tira. 

"Go  into  the  house,"  he  said. 

Tenney  laughed.  It  was  not  the  laugh  of  the  man  who 
had  just  left  them.  There  was  no  light  mockery  in  it, 
but  a  low  intensity  of  misery,  the  cynical  recognition  of 
a  man  whose  house  has  been  destroyed  and  who  asks  his 
inner  self  how  he  could  have  expected  anything  different. 
But  when  he  spoke  it  was  jeeringly,  to  Tira. 

"Go  into  the  house,"  he  mocked.  "Didn't  ye  hear  him? 
He  tells  ye  to  go  into  the  house,  into  my  house,  so's  he 
can  fight  it  out  ag'in  same's  he  done  with  t'other  one. 
You  better  go.  He  won't  git  no  odds  from  me." 

He  set  his  dinner  pail  down  beside  him,  and  his  hand 
moved  a  few  inches  along  the  helve  of  his  axe.  And 
Raven,  like  Tira,  was  sorry  for  him. 

"No,"  said  Tira,  "I  sha'n't  go  into  the  house.  An' 
this  to-do  ain't  so  much  about  me  as  about  you,  Isr'el 
Tenney,  because  you're  makin'  a  fool  o'  yourself.  You'll 


292  OLD  CROW 

be  town  talk,  an'  you  deserve  to  be.  You've  brought  it 
on  yourself." 

Haven,  his  eyes  on  the  man's  face,  saw  it  change 
slightly :  something  tremulous  had  come  into  it,  though  it 
might  have  been  only  surprise.  The  hand  on  the  axe 
helve  shook  perceptibly.  Now  it  looked  to  Raven  as  if  it 
might  be  his  turn. 

"I  came  up  here  this  morning,"  he  said,  "to  see  her." 
Curiously,  at  the  moment  of  saying  "your  wife,"  he  balked 
at  it.  He  would  not,  even  by  the  sanction  of  the  word, 
seem  to  give  her  over  to  him. 

"Yes,"  said  Tenney.  The  lividness  of  anger  tautened 
his  face.  "You  see  me  off  to  my  work.  You  knew  you'd 
find  her  here." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.  "I  knew  I  should  find  her.  I  had 
to  see  her  alone,  because  I  wanted  to  ask  her  to  leave  you, 
go  away  from  here,  and  be  safe." 

Tenney  stared  at  him.  The  brusque  fact  was  too  much 
for  him.  Why  should  Raven  have  told  it? 

"You  are  known,"  Raven  continued  steadily,  "to  abuse 
your  wife." 

Tenney's  lips  again  curled  back. 

"I  ain't  laid  a  finger  on  her,"  he  snarled.  "Anybody 
but  a  liar  'd  tell  you  so." 

"She  has  told  me  so,"  continued  Raven.  "I  came  to 
warn  her  I  should  complain  of  you  and  have  you  bound 
over  to  keep  the  peace.  She  said  if  I  did  that  she  would 
refuse  to  testify  against  you.  She  said  she  would  rather" 
— here  a  slight  bitterness  came  into  his  voice  and,  for  an 
instant,  he  had  a  foolish  satisfaction  in  reminding  Tira 
of  her  unfriendliness  in  blocking  him — "she  would  rather 
have  me  considered  out  of  my  mind  than  let  you  get  your 
just  deserts." 

"Ah !"  snarled  Tenney.     "I  wa'n't  born  yesterday." 


OLD  CROW  293 

This  interchange  had  had  on  Tira  all  the  effect  Raven 
could  have  wished.  She  started  forward  a  step,  with  a 
murmured  sound.  But  Tenm-y  was  unmoved. 

"Now  you  know,"  said  Raven,  "you're  not  going  to  tell 
me  I'm  a  liar.  I  draw  the  line  at  that.  You'll  have  to 
drop  your  axe — that's  a  cowardly  streak  in  you,  Tenney, 
a  mighty  mean  streak,  that  axe  business — and  I'll  give 
you  your  punishment  without  waiting  for  judge  or  jury." 

Tenney  looked  down  at  the  axe  frowningly,  and  the 
hand  holding  it  sank  to  his  side. 

"Besides  saying  she  wouldn't  testify  against  you," 
Raven  continued,  "she  refused  to  leave  you.  She  is  a 
foolish  woman,  but  she's  like  most  of  them.  They  hang 
on  to  the  beast  that  abuses  'em,  God  knows  why.  But 
the  rest  of  us  wron't  let  you  off  so  easy.  Don't  think  itT 
for  a  minute.  The  next  time  she's  seen  wandering  round 
the  wroods  with  her  baby  and  you  after  her,  yelling  like  a 
catamount,  you're  going  to  be  hauled  up  and,  even  if 
she  won't  testify,  there's  enough  against  you  to  make  it 
go  hard  with  you." 

Tenney  ceased  staring  at  the  axe  and  looked  up  at 
Raven.  Was  it  hatred  in  the  eyes?  The  gleam  in  them 
flickered,  in  a  curious  way,  cross  currents  of  strange 
light.  He  tried  to  speak,  gulped,  and  moistened  his  dry 
lips.  Then  he  managed  it: 

"What  business  is  it  o'  yourn?" 

"It's  every  man's  business,"  said  Raven.  "When  you 
began  running  over  the  woods,  yelling  like  a  catamount" 
— he  returned  to  this  of  set  purpose,  because  it  evidently 
bit — "I  thought  it  was  queer,  that's  all.  Thought  you 
were  out  of  your  head.  But  it  got  to  be  too  much  of  a 
good  thing.  And  it's  one  thing  to  make  yourself  a  laugh 
ing-stock.  It's  another  to  be  indicted  for  murder." 

"I  don't,"   said  Tenney,  "stan'   any  man's  interferin' 


294  OLD  CROW 

with  me.  I  give  ye  fair  warnin'  not  to  meddle  nor 
make." 

"Then,"  said  Raven,  "we've  both  got  our  warning. 
I've  had  yours  and  you've  had  mine.  You're  a  mighty 
mean  man,  Tenney.  A  mean  cuss,  that's  what  you  are." 

Tenney,  in  the  surprise  and  mortification  of  this,  barked 
out  at  him: 

"Don't  ye  call  me  a  cuss.  I'm  a  professin'  Chris 
tian." 

"Stuff!"  said  Raven.  "That's  all  talk.  I  wonder  a 
man  of  your  sense  shouldn't  see  how  ridiculous  it  is. 
You're  not  a  Christian.  When  you  stand  up  in  meeting 
and  testify,  you're  simply  a  hypocrite.  No,  I  don't  call 
you  a  Christian.  I  call  you  a  scamp,  on  the  way  to  being 
locked  up." 

Tenney's  mind  leaped  back  a  space. 

"You're  tryin'  to  throw  me  off  the  track,"  he  announced. 
"Ye  can't  do  it.  When  I  come  up  the  road  you  an'  Eugene 
Martin  was  out  there  an'  you  knocked  him  down.  I  see 
ye.  You  horsewhipped  him.  Now  if  it's  anybody's  busi 
ness  to  horsewhip  Eugene  Martin,  it's  mine.  What  busi 
ness  is  it  o'  yourn  horsewhippin'  a  man  that's  hangin' 
round  another  man's  wife  unless " 

"Hold  on  there,"  said  Raven.  "I  gave  him  his  medicine 
because  he  was  too  fresh."  Here  he  allowed  himself  a 
salutary  instant  of  swagger.  Tenney  might  as  well  think 
him  a  devil  of  a  fellow,  quick  to  act  and  hard  to  hold. 
"It  happens  to  be  my  way.  I  don't  propose  taking  back 
talk  from  anybody  of  his  sort — or  yours.  He's  a  mean 
cuss,  too,  Tenney,  ready  to  think  every  man's  as  bad 
as  he  is — a  foul-mouthed  fool.  And" — he  hesitated  here 
and  spoke  with  an  emphasis  that  did  strike  upon  Tenney's 
hostile  attention — "he  is  the  kind  of  cheap  fellow  that 
would  like  nothing  better  than  to  insult  a  woman.  That 


OLD  CROW  295 

was  what  he  sat  down  by  your  wife  for,  last  night.  That 
was  why  I  made  an  excuse  to  get  him  away  from  her.  I 
wouldn't  allow  him  within  ten  feet  of  a  woman  of  my  own 
family.  You  ought  to  be  mighty  glad  I  looked  out  for 
yours." 

Tenney  was  in  a  coil  of  doubt.  Suddenly  he  glanced 
round  at  Tira,  standing  there  in  the  path,  her  eyes  upon 
one  and  the  other  as  they  spoke.  Raven  would  not  wil 
lingly  have  looked  at  her.  He  felt  her  presence  in  his 
inmost  heart ;  he  knew  how  cold  she  must  be  in  the  wintry 
air  with  nothing  about  her  shoulders  and  the  breeze  strong 
enough  to  stir  those  rings  of  hair  about  her  forehead. 
But  she  must  suffer  it  while  he  raked  Tenney  by  the  only 
language  Tenney  knew. 

"But  here  be  you,"  cried  Tenney,  as  if  his  mind,  unsat 
isfied,  went  back  to  one  flaw  after  another  in  Raven's  argu 
ment.  "You  see  me  go  by  to  my  work,  an'  you  come  up 
here  to  talk  over  my  folks  behind  my  back  an'  tole  'em  off 
to  run  away  with  you." 

"I  have  explained  all  that  once,"  said  Raven.  "You'll 
have  to  take  it  or  leave  it." 

At  that  instant  Tira  stepped  forward.  She  gave  a  little 
cry. 

"You've  hurt  your  foot!" 

Raven's  glance  followed  hers  to  the  ground  and  he  saw 
a  red  stain  creeping  from  Tenney's  boot  into  the  snow. 
Tenney  also  glanced  at  it  indifferently.  It  was  true  that, 
although  the  cold  was  growing  anguish  to  a  numbing 
wound,  he  was  hardly  aware  of  it  as  a  pain  that  could  be 
remedied.  This  was  only  one  misery  the  more. 

"Course  I've  hurt  my  foot,"  he  said  savagely.  "What 
d'ye  s'pose  I  come  home  for,  this  time  o'  day?" 

"Why,"  said  Tira,  in  an  innocent  good  faith,  "I  s'posed 
you  come  back  to  spy  on  me." 


296  OLD  CROW 

That  did  take  hold  of  him.  He  looked  at  her  in  an 
almost  childish  reproach.  Now  he  put  the  foot  to  the 
ground — he  had  been,  though  unconsciously,  casing  it — 
but  at  the  first  step  winced  and  his  face  whitened. 

"God  A'mighty !"  Raven  heard  him  mutter,  and  was 
glad.  He  seemed  more  of  a  man  invoking  God  in  his  pain 
than  in  waving  deity  like  a  portent  before  unbelievers. 

Tira  had  gone  to  him. 

"You  put  your  hand  on  my  shoulder,"  she  said,  some 
thing  so  sweetly  thrilling  in  her  voice  that  Raven  wondered 
how  Tenney  could  hear  it  and  not  feel  his  heart  dissolve 
into  water.  For  himself,  he  was  relieved  at  the  warming 
tone,  but  it  mysteriously  hurt  him,  it  seemed  so  horrible 
that  all  the  tenderness  of  which  it  was  witness  had  to 
be  dammed  in  her  with  no  outlet  save  over  the  child  who 
was  "not  right."  Tenney  paid  no  attention  to  her,  and 
Raven  took  him  by  the  arm.  The  snow  was  reddening 
thinly  and  Raven  could  see  the  cut  in  the  boot. 

"Open  the  door,"  he  said  to  Tira.    "I'll  help  him  in." 

Curiously,  though  Tenney  had  forgotten  the  hurt  ex 
cept  as  a  part  of  his  mental  pain,  now  that  his  mind  was 
directed  toward  it  he  winced,  and  made  much  of  getting 
to  the  door.  Yet  it  seemed  to  be  in  no  sense  to  challenge 
sympathy.  He  was  simply  sorry  for  himself,  bewildered 
at  his  misfortune,  and  so  intently  was  his  mind  set  on  it 
now  that  he  did  not  seem  annoyed  by  Raven's  supporting 
him.  Tira  hurried  on  in  advance,  and  when  they  entered 
she  was  putting  wood  into  the  stove  and  opening  drafts, 
to  start  up  the  neglected  fire.  Raven  led  him  to  the  chair 
by  the  hearth,  knelt,  without  paying  any  attention  to  his 
muttered  remonstrance,  and,  with  much  difficulty  of  fre 
quent  easements,  got  off  the  boot  and  the  soaked  stocking. 
It  was  an  ugly  cut.  Tenney,  glancing  down  at  it,  groaned 
and  looked  away,  and  Tira  brought  a  pillow  and  tucked  it 


OLD  CROW  297 

behind  his  head.  Haven,  glancing  up  at  him,  saw  he  was 
white  and  sick  and  Tira  said: 

"lie  never  can  stan'  the  sight  o'  blood." 

Evidently  the  irony  of  it  did  not  strike  her  at  all,  but 
Raven  wrinkled  his  brows  over  it.  He  sent  her  here  and 
there,  for  water  to  wash  the  wound  and  for  clean  cloth. 
He  rolled  a  bandage  and  put  it  on  deftly  while  Tenney 
stared. 

"Now,"  said  he,  coming  to  his  feet,  "you'd  better  tele 
phone  the  doctor.  This  is  all  I  know." 

Tira  went  to  the  telephone  in  the  next  room  and  Raven 
cleared  away  the  confusion  he  had  made  and  again  Tenney 
watched  him.  At  intervals  he  looked  down  at  his  bandaged 
foot  as  if  he  pitied  it.  Tira,  having  given  her  message, 
came  back  and  reported  that  the  doctor  would  be  there 
shortly. 

"Then,"  said  Raven,  "I'll  be  off.  Telephone  if  you 
need  anything.  Perhaps  I'd  better  come  over  anyway. 
He'll  have  to  be  got  to  bed.  I'll  call  you  up." 

He  felt  a  sudden  easement  of  the  strain  between  him 
self  and  Tira.  Tenney  himself,  through  his  hurt,  had 
cleared  the  way.  Their  intercourse,  void  of  secrecy,  was 
suddenly  commonplace ;  at  the  moment  there  was  nothing 
in  it  to  light  a  flash  of  feeling.  Tenney  did  not  look  at 
him.  Then  Raven,  in  a  sudden  mounting  of  desire  to 
show  Tira  how  sorry  he  was  for  her,  said  to  her  impetu 
ously  : 

"I  hate  to  leave  you  alone." 

And  again  she  surprised  him  as  she  had  the  night  be 
fore  in  implicit  acceptance  of  her  new  faith,  some 
thing  as  tangible  as  divine.  She  spoke  in  a  perfect 
simplicity. 

"I  ain't  alone,"  she  said. 

Tenney  had  turned  his  head,  to  listen. 


298  OLD  CROW 

"We  ain't  alone,  Isr'el,  be  we?"  she  challenged  breath 
lessly. 

"I  dunno  what  you're  talkin'  about,"  said  Tenney  un 
easily,  and  she  laughed. 

It  was,  Raven  wonderingly  thought,  a  light-hearted 
laugh,  as  if  she  had  no  longer  anything  to  bear. 

"Why,"  said  she,  "same  as  I  told  you.  We  ain't  alone  a 
minute  o'  the  time,  if  we  don't  feel  to  be.  He's  with  us, 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

The  telephone  bell  rang  and  she  went  off  to  answer  it. 
Tenney,  as  if  with  a  hopeful  conviction  that  another  man 
would  understand,  turned  his  eyes  upon  Raven. 

"What's  anybody  want  to  talk  like  that  for?"  he  ques 
tioned  irrepressibly. 

"It's  the  way  you  talk  yourself,"  said  Raven.  "That's 
precisely  what  you  said  last  night." 

"It's  no  kind  of  a  way "  Tenney  began,  and  then 

pulled  himself  up.  Raven  believed  that  he  meant  it  was 
one  thing  to  invoke  the  Founder  of  his  religion  in  a  sac 
erdotal  sense,  but  not  for  the  comforting  certainty  of  a 
real  Presence.  "Seems  if  anybody's  crazed.  Seems 
if —  Here  he  broke  off  again,  and  Raven  took  satis 

faction  in  the  concluding  phrase:  "It's  no  way  to  talk 
when  a  man's  lamed  himself  so's't  he  can't  git  round  the 
room  'thout  bleedin'  to  death." 

By  this  Raven  understood  the  man  was,  in  an  hysterical 
way,  afraid  of  Tira  and  her  surprising  invocation.  He 
judged  things  were  looking  rather  better  for  her,  and 
went  off  almost  cheerfully,  without  waiting  for  her  return. 


XXVI 

When  Raven  came  to  Nan's,  he  went  in  without  knock 
ing  and  found  the  house  still.  He  called  her  name, 
and  she  answered  from  an  upper  distance.  Presently 
she  appeared,  traveling  bag  in  hand,  and  came  down 
to  him. 

"You  really  want  me,  Rookie?"  she  asked  him,  pausing 
at  the  closet  door  where  she  had  hung  her  hat  and  coat. 
"You  want  an  unattached  female,  unchaperoned,  very 
much  at  large?" 

"I  want  her,"  said  Raven,  "more  than  anything  else 
I'm  likely  to  get  in  this  frowsy  world.  As  to  chaperons, 
Charlotte  will  do  very  well,  without  legging  it  over  here 
every  night  to  keep  you  in  countenance." 

Nan  put  on  her  hat  and  coat,  and  he  picked  up  the  bag. 

"Back  door  locked?"  he  asked. 

She  laughed. 

"Yes,"  said  she.  "That  shows  I  meant  to  come.  Go 
ahead,  Rookie.  I'll  lock  this  door."  Mid-way  down  the 
path,  she  glanced  at  him  and  then  ventured:  "You  look 
very  much  set  up.  What  is  it,  Rookie?  what  happened?" 

"The  thing  that's  happened,"  asid  Raven,  with  a  little 
reminiscent  laugh,  "is  that  Tenney's  afraid  of  his  wife. 
And  he's  cut  his  foot  and  can't  get  away  from  her.  I  call 
it  the  most  ironical  of  time's  revenges  I've  ever  had  the 
pleasure  of  seeing." 

He  went  on  and  told  her  the  story  of  Tenney's  disabled 
foot.  Nan,  listening,  did  not  take  it  in. 

299 


300  OLD  CROW 

"But  I  don't  sec,"  she  offered,  "why  it  makes  him  afraid 
of  her." 

"It  doesn't.  Though  it  makes  it  more  difficult  for  him 
to  get  at  her.  The  thing  that's  bowled  him  over  is  that 
she's  taken  him  at  his  word.  He's  told  her  the  Founder 
of  his  religion  is  everywhere  present,  and  now  she's  ac 
cepted  it  and  assumes  the  Presence  is  there  in  the  kitchen, 
it  scares  him.  He  assumes  she's  dotty.  Hence  he's 
afraid  of  her.  You  see,  Nan,  the  Presence  he's  in  the 
habit  of  invoking  is  something  he  conceives  of  as  belonging 
to  strictly  sacerdotal  occasions.  Really,  it's  a  form  of 
words.  But  she  believes  it  and  that,  as  I  told  you,  scares 
him.  It's  like  raising  a  ghost.  He's  raised  it  and  some 
body's  seen  it  and  he's  scared." 

"Can't  the  queerest  things  happen,"  Nan  asked  him, 
in  a  discursiveness  he  found  nevertheless  relevant,  "here 
in  New  England?  There  isn't  a  human  trait  or  a  morbid 
outcrop  but  we've  got  it.  See !  Charlotte's  at  the  win 
dow.  S'pose  she'll  want  me?" 

"She'll  love  it,"  said  Raven.  He  lifted  up  his  voice  and 
called  and  Charlotte  left  the  window  to  appear  at  the  door. 
"I've  got  her,  Charlotte,"  said  Raven.  "She's  going  to 
make  us  a  visit.  Give  us'  almond  pudding  for  dinner, 
can't  you?" 

It  was  too  late  for  that,  Charlotte  told  him  indulgently, 
but  she  guessed  there'd  be  suthin'.  She  lingered  in  the 
hall  while  Nan  took  off  her  coat,  and  volunteered  informa 
tion  about  the  fire  being  lighted  in  the  west  chamber. 

"I  'most  thought  you'd  come,"  she  said,  in  a  way  softly 
confidential.  "You  can  settle  right  down  now,  you  two, 
an'  visit." 

She  put  a  hand  for  an  instant  on  Nan's  shoulder  and 
Nan  felt  the  glow  of  her  beneficence.  Did  Charlotte  know 
what  it  was  to  her  to  have  even  one  evening  alone  with 


OLD  CROW  301 

Rookie?  Charlotte  knew  most  things.  Probably  she 
knew  that. 

Nan  and  Raven  had  their  noon  dinner  and  went  for  a 
walk,  up  the  road.  That  led  them  past  Tenney's  and  when 
they  reached  the  house  Raven  said : 

"You  wait  a  jiff  and  I'll  ask  how  he  is." 

Tira  came,  in  answer  to  his  knock.  She  was  gravely 
calm,  not  even  disturbed  in  her  secret  mind,  Raven  con 
cluded,  not  keyed  up  by  inner  apprehension,  and  keeping 
herself  firm.  Where,  he  wondered  absently,  at  the  same 
instant,  did  she  get  those  clothes,  blue,  always  worn  to  the 
exact  point  of  soft  loveliness,  the  very  moral  of  her  eyes? 
She  glanced  down  the  path  at  Nan,  and  Nan  waved  to  her. 
Tira  gave  a  serious  little  bow  and  turned  her  glance  to 
Raven,  who  inquired: 

"How's  his  foot?" 

"It  pains  him  a  good  deal,"  she  said,  with  that  softness 
he  had  noted  in  her  voice  while  they  dressed  the  hurt.  "He 
has  to  set  with  it  in  a  chair.  It  worries  him  to  death  not 
to  git  round." 

"Good  Lord!"  said  Raven.  "You  must  think  I'm  a 
nice  chap.  Who's  doing  the  barn  work?" 

"Oh,"  said  Tira,  "that's  all  right.  I  can  see  to  that. 
I  always  do  when  he's  gone  for  day's  works." 

"You  can't  water  the  stock." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  can."  Now  she  smiled  at  him,  beautifully, 
bewilderingly,  for  his  kindness  in  asking.  "I  done  it  before 
dinner.  That's  nothin'.  Besides,  I  like  it:  takes  me  out 
door." 

"Don't  do  any  more,"  said  Raven.  "We'll  be  over, 
'long  about  four  o'clock,  Jerry  or  I."  Then,  for  he  had 
forgotten  Tenney,  in  his  awareness  of  her,  he  remembered 
to  ask:  "The  doctor  came,  did  he?" 

She  nodded  gravely. 


302  OLD  CROW 

"Say  anything?" 

She  shook  her  head,  and  then  offered,  it  seemed  unwil 
lingly  : 

"He  thought  he  might  be  laid  up  quite  a  spell." 

To  Raven,  that  seemed  so  desirable,  that  he  wondered  at 
the  commiseration  in  her  voice;  evidently  she  could  be 
sorry  for  Tenney  without  an  admixture  of  relief  at  having 
him  safely  fettered  for  a  while. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I'll  be  over.  And  if  there's  anything 
'  he  stopped  and  looked  ker  in  the  eyes,  gravely 
authoritative.  It  was  the  first  time  their  two  inner  selves 
had  met  in  such  unrestrained  interchange.  If  there  was 
anything  he  could  do  for  her,  the  glance  said,  she  was  to 
know  he  would  do  it,  to  the  very  limit  of  allegiance.  What 
did  her  own  glance  say?  Was  there  acceptance  in  it?  Not 
so  much  that  as  a  grave  understanding  and  gratitude.  He 
was  her  refuge,  her  strength.  She  might  still  go  winging 
brokenly  about  the  obscurity  that  made  her  life,  but  he 
was  the  shelter  where  she  might  take  cover  if  she  would. 
Their  gaze  broke  (it  was  locked  there  an  instant  only) 
and  however  she  felt  in  turning  from  him,  Raven  had  the 
sensation  of  dragging  his  eyes  away. 

"I'll  be  over,"  he  said,  "in  time  to  fodder  and  milk." 

He  was  leaving,  but  she  called  after  him : 

"No,  don't  you  come.    You  send  Jerry." 

"I  can  do  it  as  well  as  Jerry,"  he  answered  impatiently, 
and  again  she  called: 

"No,  don't  you  come.     I  don't  think  best." 

Immediately  Raven  knew,  if  she  put  it  in  that  tone  (the 
mother  tone  it  was)  he  himself  didn't  "think  best."  He 
joined  Nan  and  they  walked  on,  not  speaking.  Suddenly 
he  stopped  for  an  instant,  without  warning,  and  she  too 
stopped  and  looked  at  him.  He  took  off  his  hat  and  was 
glad  of  the  cold  air  on  his  forehead. 


OLD  CROW  303 

"Mystery  of  mysteries !"  he  said.  There  was  bitter 
ness  in  his  tone,  exasperation,  revolt.  Evidently  he 
saw  himself  in  a  situation  he  neither  invited  nor  under 
stood.  "Who'd  think  of  finding  a  woman  like  that  on 
a  New  England  doorstep  talking  about  foddering  the 
cows  ?" 

Nan  considered  the  wisely  circumspect  thing  to  say 
and  managed  tamely: 

"She's  a  good  woman." 

They  went  on. 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  after  a  while,  "she's  a  good  woman. 
But  does  she  want  to  be?  Or  isn't  there  anything  inside 
her  to  make  her  want  to  be  anything  else?" 

"I  have  an  idea,"  said  Nan,  going  carefully,  "most  of 
the  men  she's  known  have  wanted  her  to  be  something 
else." 

"Now  what  do  you  mean  by  that?"  said  Raven  irritably. 
"And  what  do  you  know  about  it  anyway?  You're  nothing 
but  a  little  girl." 

"You  keep  saying  that,"  said  Nan,  with  composure, 
"because  it  gives  you  less  responsibility." 

Pie  stared  at  her,  forgetting  Tira. 

"Responsibility?"  he  repeated.  "What  responsibility 
is  there  I  don't  want  to  take — about  you?" 

"You  don't  want  me  to  be  a  woman,"  said  Nan.  "You 
want  me  to  be  a  little  girl,  always  adoring  you,  just 
enough,  not  too  much.  You've  been  adored  enough  by 
women,  Rookie." 

They  both  knew  she  was  talking  in  a  hidden  language. 
It  was  not  women  she  meant ;  it  was  Aunt  Anne. 

"But,"  said  she,  persisting,  "I'm  quite  grown  up.  I've 
been  in  the  War,  just  as  deep  as  you  have,  as  deep  as 
Dick.  I've  taken  it  all  at  a  gulp — the  whole  business,  I 
mean,  life,  things  as  they  are.  I  couldn't  any  more  go 


304  OLD  CROW 

back  to  the  Victorian  striped  candy  state  of  mind  I  was 
taught  to  pattern  by  than  you  could  yourself." 

"You  let  the  Victorians  alone,"  growled  Raven.  "Much 
you  know  about  'em." 

"They  were  darlings,"  said  Nan.  "They  had  more 
brains,  any  ten  of  'em,  than  a  million  of  us  put  together. 
But  it  does  happen  to  be  true  they  didn't  see  what  human 
nature  is,  under  the  skin.  We  do.  We've  scratched  it 
and  we  know.  It's  a  horrible  sight,  Rookie." 

"What  is  it?"  said  Raven.     "What  is  under  the  skin?" 

Nan  considered. 

"Well,"  she  said  finally,  "there's  something  savage. 
Not  strong,  splendid  savage,  you  know,  but  pretending  to 
be  big  Injun  and  not  fetching  it.  Wearing  red  blankets, 
and  whooping,  and  tearing  raw  meat.  O  Rookie,  how  do 
folks  talk?  I  can't,  even  to  you.  But  the  world  isn't — 
well,  it  isn't  as  nice  as  I  thought  it :  not  so  clean.  You 
ought  to  know.  You  don't  like  it  either." 

"So,"  said  Raven,  meditatively,  "you  don't  like  it." 

"It's  no  matter  whether  I  like  it  or  not,"  said  Nan,  in  a 
chilly  way  he  interpreted  as  pride.  "I'm  in  it.  And  I'm 
going  to  play  the  game." 

They  went  on  for  a  while  without  speaking,  and  then 
Raven  looked  round  at  her,  a  whimsical  look. 

"So  you  give  notice,"  he  said,  "you're  grown  up." 

"I  give  notice,"  said  Nan  tersely.  "I'm  a  very  old  lady 
really,  older  than  you  are,  Rookie."  Then  she  judged  the 
moment  had  come  for  setting  him  right  on  a  point  that 
might  be  debatable.  "If  you  think  I  was  a  little  girl  when 
I  sat  there  and  loved  you  the  other  night,  you  might 
as  well  know  I  wasn't.  And  I  wasn't  a  woman  either: 
not  then.  I  was  just  a  person,  a  creatur',  Charlotte 
would  say,  that  wanted  you  to  get  under  your  tough 
lonesome  old  hide  there's  somebody  that  loves  you  to 


OLD  CROW  305 

death    and    believes    in    you    and   knows    everything   you 
feel." 

"Am  I  lonesome,  Nan?"  he  asked  quickly,  picking  out 
the  word  that  struck  him  deepest.  "I  don't  know." 

"I  do,"  said  Nan.  "You  haven't  had  any  of  the  things 
men  ought  to  have  to  keep  them  from  growing  into  those 
queer  he-birds  stuck  all  over  with  ridiculous  little  habits 
like  pin  feathers  that  make  you  want  to  laugh — and  cry, 
too.  Old  bachelors.  Lord!" 

"Look  out,"  said  Raven.  "You'll  get  rne  interested  in 
myself.  I've  gone  too  far  that  way  already.  The  end 
of  that  road  is  Milly  and  psycho-analysis  and  my  break 
ing  everybody's  head  because  they  won't  let  me  alone." 

"Break  'em  then,"  said  Nan  concisely.  "And  run 
away.  Take  this  Tira  with  you  and  run  off  to  the  Malay 
Peninsula  or  somewhere.  That  sounds  further  away  than 
most  places.  Or  an  island:  there  must  be  an  island  left 
somewhere,  for  a  homesick  old  dear  like  you." 

"Now,  in  God's  name,"  said  Raven,  "what  do  you  say 
that  for?" 

"Tira?''  Nan  inquired  recklessly.  "What  do  I  tell  you 
to  take  her  for?  Because  I  want  to  see  you  mad,  Rookie, 
humanly  mad.  And  she's  got  the  look  that  makes  us  mad, 
men  and  women,  too." 

"What  is  it?"  Raven  asked  thickly.  "What  is  the 
look?" 

"Mystery.     It's  beauty  first,  and  then  mystery  spread 
over  that.     She's  like — why,  Rookie,  she's  like  life  itself— 
mystery." 

"No,"  said  Raven,  surprising  her,  "you're  not  a  little 
girl  any  more:  that's  true  enough.  I  don't  know  you." 

"Likely  not,"  said  Nan,  undisturbed.  "You  can't  have 
your  cake  and  eat  it.  You  can't  have  a  little  Nan  beg 
ging  for  stories  and  a  Nan  that's  on  her  job  of  seeing 


306  OLD  CROW 

you  get  something  out  of  life,  if  she  can  manage  it,  before 
it's  too  late." 

There  she  stopped,  on  the  verge,  she  suddenly  realized, 
of  blundering.  He  was  not  to  guess  she  had  too  controll 
ing  an  interest  in  that  comprehensive  mystery  which  was 
his  life.  How  horrible  beyond  measure  if  she  took  over 
Aunt  Anne's  frantic  task  of  beneficent  guidance !  Rookie 
should  be  free.  He  began  to  laugh,  and,  without  waiting 
for  the  reason,  she  joined  him. 

"Maybe  I  will,"  he  said,  "the  Malay  prescription,  half 
of  it.  But  I  should  want  you  with  me.  You  may  not  be 
little,  but  you're  a  great  Nan  to  play  with.  We  won't 
drag  Tira's  name  into  it,"  he  added  gravely.  "Poor 
Tira's  name !  We'll  take  good  care  of  it." 

"Oh,  I'll  go,"  said  Nan  recklessly.  "But  we'll  take 
Tira.  And  we'll  build  her  a  temple  in  a  jungle  and  put 
her  up  on  a  pedestal  and  feed  her  with  tropical  fruits  and 
sit  cross-legged  before  her  so  many  hours  a  day  and  medi 
tate  on  her  mystery." 

"What  would  she  say?"  Raven  wondered,  and  then 
laughed  out  in  a  quick  conviction.  "No,  she  wouldn't  say 
anything.  She'd  accept  it,  as  she  does  foddering  the 
cows." 

"Certainly,"  said  Nan.     "That's  Tira." 

"You've  forgotten  the  baby." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan,  soberly.     "Poor  little  boy !" 

They  were  serious  and  could  play  no  more,  and  pres 
ently  turned  into  the  back  road  and  so  home.  At  supper 
they  had  a  beautiful  time,  the  lights  soft,  the  fire  purring, 
and  the  shades  up  so  that  the  cold  austerities  of  night 
could  look  in  without  getting  them.  Nan  had  done  a  fool 
ish  thing,  one  of  those  for  which  women  can  give  no 
reason,  for  usually  they  do  not  know  which  one  it  is  out 
of  the  braided  strands  of  all  the  reasons  that  make  emo- 


OLD  CROW  307 

tion.  She  had  unearthed  a  short  pink  crepe  frock  she 
used  to  wear  in  her  childish  days,  and  let  her  heavy  hair 
hang  in  two  braids  tied  with  pink  ribbons.  Did  she  want 
to  lull  Rookie's  new-born  suspicion  of  her  as  a  too  mature 
female  thing,  by  stressing  the  little  girl  note,  or  did  she 
slip  into  the  masquerading  gown  because  it  was  restful  to 
go  back  the  long  road  that  lay  between  the  present  and 
the  days  when  there  was  no  war?  Actually  she  did  not 
know.  She  did  know  she  had  flown  wildly  "up  attic,"  the 
minute  Rookie  announced  the  daring  plan  of  the  visit, 
and  flung  open  chest  after  chest,  packed  by  Aunt  Anne's 
exact  hands,  with  this  and  that  period  of  her  clothes. 
Why  had  Aunt  Anne  kept  them,  she  straightened  herself 
to  wonder,  at  one  point,  throwing  them  out  in  a  disorderly 
pile,  ginghams,  muslins,  a  favorite  China  silk.  Could  it 
be  Aunt  Anne  had  loved  her,  not  so  much  as  she  loved 
Rookie,  but  in  the  same  hidden,  inflexible  way,  and  wanted 
to  preserve  the  image  of  her  as  she  grew  to  girlhood,  in 
the  clothes  she  had  worn?  It  was  not  likely,  she  con 
cluded,  and  was  relieved  to  dismiss  even  the  possibility. 
It  would  have  made  too  much  to  live  up  to,  a  present  loy 
alty  of  obedience  which,  if  Aunt  Anne  in  the  heavenly 
courts  had  anything  like  her  earthly  disposition,  would  be 
the  only  thing  to  satisfy  her.  Nan  didn't  mean  to  do 
anything  definitely  displeasing,  especially  to  Aunt  Anne. 
She  simply  meant  to  enjoy  to  the  full  the  ecstasy  of  liv 
ing,  just  as  if  it  were  going  on  for  a  lifetime,  under  the 
same  roof  with  Rookie  and  having  him  all  to  herself. 
Then  she  came  on  the  pink  crepe,  with  its  black  bows,  and 
gave  a  tiny  nod  of  satisfaction  there  in  the  attic  dusk,  and 
was  all  in  a  glow,  though  it  was  so  cold. 

When  she  came  down  to  supper  that  night,  Raven  was 
reading  his  paper  by  the  fire.  He  glanced  up  as  if  she 
came  in  so  every  night,  Nan  thought.  She  liked  that. 


308  OLD  CROW 

But  she  was  a  little  awkward,  conscious  of  her  masquerade 
and  so  really  adding  to  the  illusion  of  girlhood,  ill  used 
to  its  own  charm.  Raven  threw  down  his  paper  and 
got  up. 

"Lord!"  said  he.  "Come  here,  you  witch.  Let  me  look 
at  you." 

Nan  was  actually  shy  now. 

"Why,  my  darling."  said  Raven,  in  a  tone  so  moved 
she  was  almost  sorry  she  had  brought  it  all  about.  It 
made  too  many  responsibilities.  Which  Nan  was  she 
going  to  be?  ("But  no  kissing!"  she  reminded  herself.) 
"You've  come  back  to  me." 

"I  haven't  been  away,"  said  Nan,  recovering  herself  and 
treating  him  to  a  cool  little  nod,  "not  actually.  Like  it, 
Charlotte?"  For  Charlotte  had  come  in  with  a  platter, 
and  Nan  turned  about,  peacocking  before  her  unsurprised 
gaze.  "I  found  it  up  attic." 

"It's  real  pretty,"  said  Charlotte.  "Them  scant  things 
they're  wearin'  now,  they  ain't  to  be  thought  of  in  the 
same  day." 

Then,  having  given  the  room  a  last  glance  (almost  a 
caressing  touch  Charlotte  had,  a  little  anxious,  too,  be 
cause  all  comforts  were  so  important)  she  went  out,  and 
Nan  was  sitting  opposite  Raven  at  the  table,  demure, 
self-contained,  yet  playing  her  wildest.  It  was  a  game  she 
knew  she  was  to  have  entirely  alone.  The  game  was  that 
she  and  Rookie  were  living  here  in  this  house  in  some 
such  potency  of  possessive  bliss  that  nothing  could  sepa 
rate  them.  She  was  careless  over  the  terms  of  it.  She 
was  a  child,  she  was  a  woman,  she  was  everything  Rookie 
wanted  her  to  be.  Here  they  were  together,  and  the 
universe,  finding  the  combination,  Nan  and  Rookie,  too 
strong  to  fight  against,  had  given  up  the  losing  battle, 
turned  sulkily  and  left  them  alone. 


OLD  CROW  309 

They  were  hungry  and  in  high  spirits,  and  they  ate  and 
talked  a  great  deal.  Nan  meant  to  remember  what  they 
talked  about.  Even  the  words  were  so  dear  to  her  she 
would  have  liked  to  set  them  down  in  a  book  to  keep 
for  her  old  age  that  was  to  be  as  desolate  as  Aunt  Anne's. 
But  it  shouldn't  be  as  conventional.  There  should  be 
waves  on  that  sea.  Then  Charlotte  had  come  in  to  clear 
the  table  and  afterward,  by  Raven's  invitation,  sat  ten 
minutes  or  so  by  the  fire  and  talked  of  neighborhood 
things,  and  they  were  left  alone  again,  and  he  was  sud 
denly  grave.  Was  the  game  over,  Nan  wondered,  and  then 
went  on  into  a  more  unbridled  speculation  whether  he 
was  finding  himself  reminded  of  the  old  scruples,  the  old 
withholding!  when  Aunt  Anne,  unable  to  keep  up  with 
their  galloping  horses  of  fun,  restrained  them  delicately 
but  with  what  a  hand  of  steel !  And  suddenly  she  realized 
he  was  not  thinking  of  her.  Was  the  grim  house  over  the 
rise  of  the  road  calling  to  his  anxious  heart? 

"Nan,"  he  said,  as  if  he  had  suddenly  made  up  his  mind, 
"I've  got  something  to  show  you." 

He  left  the  room  and  she  heard  him  running  upstairs. 
Presently  he  was  back,  carrying  the  mottled  book.  In 
stantly  it  had  a  vivid  interest  for  her,  he  held  it  so  rever 
ently  and,  it  seemed,  so  tenderly.  She  was  at  the  fire  and 
he  told  her  to  get  up  and  take  the  other  chair.  It  would 
bring  the  light  at  her  back.  With  the  book  still  in  his 
hand,  he  sat  down  before  the  fire  and  began  to  tell  her  the 
story  of  Old  Crow.  Nan  had  known  it,  in  its  outer  eccen 
tricities  ;  but  had  Old  Crow  been  unhappy?  That  was  new 
to  her.  She  had  heard  of  him  as  queer,  the  country 
oddity  who,  being  frenzied  over  God  or  love,  had  madly 
incarcerated  himself  in  the  loneliness  of  his  own  eccen 
tricity. 

"At  odds  with  life  as  he  found  it,"  Raven  concluded, 


310  OLD  CROW 

"not  actually  able  to  bear  it.  That's  how  it  looked  to  the 
rest  of  us.  Now,  this  is  how  it  looked  to  him." 

"Is  it  a  journal?"  Nan  asked. 

She  had  forgotten  her  game.  She  was  no  child  now, 
but  a  serious  woman  with  an  intensely  frowning  glance. 

"Yes.  This  is  his  journal.  Want  to  read  it,  or  me  read 
it  to  you?" 

"Oh,  you,"  said  Nan. 

"I'd  better,  I  guess.  His  punctuation's  queer,  and  so's 
his  spelling  sometimes.  But  I  wish  I  could  write  as  good 
a  fist." 

So  he  began.  Nan  sat  perfectly  still  while  the  reading 
lasted.  Once  getting  up  to  tend  the  fire,  she  went  back 
to  a  higher  chair  and  sat  tense,  her  hands  clasped  about 
her  knees.  Old  Crow  seemed  to  have  entered  the  room, 
a  singularly  vital  figure  with  extraordinary  things  to  say. 
Whether  you  believed  the  things  or  not,  you  had  to  listen, 
Old  Crow  believed  them  so  tremendously.  He  was  like  a 
shock,  an  assault  from  the  atmosphere  itself.  He  affected 
Nan  profoundly.  Her  perched  attitude  in  the  chair 
was,  in  an  unreasoned  way,  her  own  tribute  of  strained 
attention.  She  was  not  combating  him,  but  she  had  to 
tune  herself  up  high  not  to  be  overwhelmed.  When  Raven 
had  finished,  he  turned  and  laid  the  book  on  the  table 
behind  him,  but  lingeringly  as  if,  Nan  thought,  he  had  an 
affection  for  it. 

"Well,"  he  asked,  "what  do  you  think?" 


XXVII 

"What  do  I  think?"  Nan  repeated.  "About  Old  Crow, 
or  his  religion?  It  is  that,  isn't  it,  Rookie?  It  is  a 
religion." 

"It's  a  religion,  all  right,"  said  Raven.  "And  curiously, 
Nan,  it's  given  me  a  tremendous  boost." 

"Because  you  think — 

"Not  because  I  think  anything.  I've  an  idea  that  with 
religions  you'd  better  not  think.  You'd  better  believe." 

"If  you  can,"  said  she. 

"But  don't  you  believe?"  he  asked  her,  out  of  an  im 
petuosity  like  her  own.  "I  never  thought  to  wonder  what 
you  believed.  I  remember  though,  one  time." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan.  A  deeper  red  ran  into  her  cheeks,  and 
her  brows  came  down  a  little  over  her  eyes.  Raven  could 
see  she  was  visualizing  something.  "You're  going  back 
to  the  time  when  I  wouldn't  be  confirmed." 

"I  remember.     Mighty  disagreeable,  that  was." 

"Yes.  I  was  in  disgrace.  She  looked  at  me  as  if  she'd 
been  frozen.  And  you  brought  me  a  peach.  Do  you  re 
member  that  peach?" 

He  shook  his  head.  But  he  did  remember,  though  he 
said  nothing,  his  mind  on  the  poor  little  girl  chilled  by 
Aunt  Anne's  frozen  look. 

"It  was  the  most  beautiful  peach,"  said  Nan,  looking 
into  the  fire,  and  continuing  to  hug  her  knees.  "It  wasn't 
that  I  didn't  have  peaches.  There  were  plenty  to  be 
eaten  like  a  lady  with  a  silver  knife,  or  even  stolen  off  the 

311 


312  OLD  CROW 

sideboard  and  gobbled  in  the  garden  with  the  juice 
squshing  over  jour  white  frock.  But  this  one — you 
slipped  it  into  my  hand  and  I  knew  it  was  because  you 
were  sorry  for  me.  And  I  took  it  out  of  the  room  and 
went  into  the  garden  with  it.  And  what  do  you  s'pose 
I  did  then,  Rookie?" 

"Ate  it,  I  hope,"  said  Raven.  He  felt  his  eyes  hot  with 
"ngry  sorrow  over  her.  "That's  the  only  thing  I  know  of 
to  do  with  a  peach." 

"I  went  round  behind  the  lilacs,  where  the  lily  bed  is, 
and  stood  there  and  cried  like — like  a  water  spout,  I 
guess,  and  I  kissed  the  peach.  I  kissed  it  and  kissed  it. 
It  was  like  a  rough  cheek.  And  then  I  buried  it  among 
the  lilies  because  the  dirt  there  looked  so  soft." 

"Did  it  come  up?" 

He  wanted,  though  so  late,  to  turn  it  into  childish 
comedy.  Nan  laughed  out. 

"No,"  she  said  ruefully,  "not  the  way  you'd  expect. 
It  did  come  up.  I  saw  her  troweling  there  the  next 
morning.  She'd  called  me  to  bring  her  other  gardening 
gloves.  She'd  found  a  hole  in  one  she  had  on.  You 
know  how  exquisitely  she  kept  her  hands.  And  just  as 
I  came,  she  turned  up  the  peach,  and  looked  at  it  as  if  it 
had  done  something  disgraceful  to  get  there,  and  tossed  it 
into  her  basket." 

"Now,"  said  Raven,  "you  can't  make  me  think  any 
body" —  he  couldn't  allow  himself  to  say  Aunt  Anne — 
"went  hunting  out  your  poor  little  peach." 

"No,"  said  Nan,  bending  on  him  a  limpid  gaze.  "Of 
course  not,  consciously.  Only  there  was  something — 
But  even  she,  with  all  her  recklessness,  could  not  follow 
this  out.  In  her  own  consciousness  was  the  certainty  that 
deep  in  Aunt  Anne,  deep  as  the  principle  of  life  itself, 
was  an  intuition  which  led  her  will  to  the  evidence  it 


OLD  CROW  313 

needed  for  its  own  victories.  "And  the  queer  thing 
about  it  was,"  she  ended,  "I  didn't  refuse  to  be  confirmed 
because  I  doubted  things.  I  refused  because  I  believed. 
I  believed  in  God ;  I  believed  so  hard  I  was  afraid." 

"What  of?" 

"Afraid  of  standing  in  with  what  I  didn't  like.  Afraid 
I  couldn't  carry  it  through,  and  if  I  didn't,  there'd  be 
ginger  for  me  somewhere.  So  queer,  Rookie,  like  all  the 
things  that  keep  happening  to  us.  Little  ironies,  you 
know,  that  sort  of  thing.  For  she  thought  I  was  behaving 
shockingly  toward  God.  And  really,  Rookie,  it  was  be 
cause  I  was  so  afraid  of  Him.  I  believed  in  Him  so  much 
I  couldn't  say  I  believed  in  a  way  I  didn't." 

"Like  Old  Crow,"  said  Raven.  "Only  you  didn't  go  far 
enough.  You  didn't  say  it's  only  a  symbol." 

"I  tried  not  to  think  much  about  it,  anyway,"  she 
owned.  "I  couldn't  believe  what  she  did.  But  I  couldn't 
go  into  it.  I  can't  now.  Don't  you  know,  Rookie,  there  are 
things  you  can't  talk  about?  It's  bad  manners." 

"I  wish  the  learned  divines  thought  so,"  said  Raven. 
"Dear  Nan!"  he  added,  his  mind  returning  to  her.  "I 
didn't  know  you  so  very  well,  after  all.  I  must  have  seen 
you  were  having  a  beast  of  a  time,  or  I  mightn't  have 
butted  in  with  the  peach,  but  I  didn't  know  how  deep  it 
went." 

"Oh,  it  always  goes  deep  with  children,"  said  Nan,  care 
lessly,  as  if  the  child  he  was  pitying  being  snowed  under 
by  the  years,  it  made  no  great  difference  about  her,  any 
way.  "You  get  gashed  to  the  bone  and  the  scars  are 
like  welts.  But  so  far  as  I  see,  it  has  to  be,  coming  into 
a  world  you  don't  even  know  the  rules  of  till  they're 
banged  into  you." 

"You  wouldn't  be  willing,"  said  Raven,  spurred  on  by  a 
mounting  curiosity  over  her,  the  inner  mind  of  her  he 


314  OLD  CROW 

seemed  never  to  have  touched  before,  "you  wouldn't  be 
willing  to  tell  me  what  it  was  in  the  church  you  didn't 
like?" 

"Yes,"  said  Nan  decisively,  "I  should  mind.  Oh,  I'd 
tell  you,  Rookie,  if  I  could  anybody.  But  I  can't.  Maybe 
I  could  if  I  hadn't  seen  it  working:  over  there,  you  know 
— seen  boys  clinging  to  it  so  at  the  end — confession — 
the  crucifix.  (The  vestments,  do  you  remember?  over  that 
faded  horizon  blue!)  I  couldn't  do  it,  Rookie,  what 
they  did,  not  if  I  died  this  minute.  Only,"  she  added, 
struck  by  a  thought,  "I  might  want  it  to  remind  me.  I 
might  touch  the  crucifix,  you  know,  or  look  at  something 
or  feel  the  holy  water  on  my  forehead.  I  might  be  too 
far  gone  to  think  up  to  God  but — yes,  it  might  remind 
me." 

"Symbols,"  said  Raven,  profoundly  moved  by  the  vision 
of  the  bright  spirit  in  her  mortal  beauty  flickering  out. 
"Old  Crow." 

"And  when  I  said,"  she  hesitated,  anxious  to  give  him 
everything  he  asked  of  her,  "the  things  I  didn't  like,  I 
meant  the  things  they  tell  us,  Rookie.  You  know:  facts, 
details.  And  then  you  think  of  God  and — no  use,  Rookie, 
no  use!" 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "that's  where  Old  Crow  was  up 
against  it.  But  picture  writing,  because  it's  the  only 
kind  of  writing  we  can  read — picture  writing,  Nan,  be 
cause  we're  savages — he  could  take  that  and  not  wince." 

"Anyway,"  said  Nan,  "I'm  happiest  not  thinking  of  it. 
I  say  my  prayers:  God  bless  Rookie.  God  bless  me. 
That's  all." 

"I  don't  believe  it." 

"Don't  believe  what?  That  I  say  'God  bless  Rookie'? 
Course  I  do.  Why  not?" 

"Well,   I'm  blessed!"    said  Haven,   at   a   loss.      Then, 


OLD  CROW  315 

recovering  himself,  "Nan,  I  never've  known  you  in  the 
least.     How  am  I  getting  at  you  now?" 

"Because  we're  shut  up  here  with  the  quiet  and  the 
snow,"  said  Nan. 

She  looked  at  the  fire,  not  at  him.  He  thought,  with 
a  startled  delight  in  her,  he  had  never  seen  a  more  con 
tented  figure  and,  the  beauty  of  it  was,  entirely  oblivious 
of  him.  It  made  no  demands. 

"It's  a  fact,"  he  reflected,  "I've  really  never  seen  you 
since  you  grew  up.  First  you  were  a  child,  then  you  went 
over  there.  You  had  to  take  life  whole,  as  Old  Crow 
took  his  religion." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan,  "I  guess  we're  all  queer,  we  young 
ones,  that  have  been  in  service.  You  see  we've  had  to 
take  things  as  they  are.  You  can't  veil  them  from  us. 
We've  seen  'em.  We  know."  She  laughed  out.  "Rookie, 
it's  queer,  but  I'm  a  good  deal  more  like  the  old-fashioned 
girl  we  read  about  than  the  rest  of  the  crowd  I  run  with.'' 
"Why?"  Raven  ventured. 

If  Nan  was  in  a  mood  to  unveil  her  dear  mind,  he  wanted 
her  voice  to  rush  on  and  on  in  that  sweet  staccato.     And 
her  answer  was  in  itself  surprising: 
"Aunt  Anne." 

Raven  sat  looking  at  her,  a  slow  smile  dawning.  There 
she  was,  "prim  as  a  dish,"  Charlotte  would  say,  her  two 
braids  down  her  back,  her  hands  clasped  about  her  knees. 
He  had  never,  the  undercurrent  in  his  mind  still  reminded 
him,  been  so  alone  with  her  since  the  days  when  they 
had,  with  an  unspoken  sense  of  lawlessness,  slipped  away 
together  for  a  day's  fishing  or  a  breathless  orchid  hunt 
in  the  woods.  The  adventures  had  been  less  and  less  fre 
quent  as  time  ran  on  and  it  had  begun  to  dawn  on  Raven 
that  they  were  entirely  contrary  to  Aunt  Anne's  sense  of 
New  England  decencies.  After  each  occasion  Nan  would 


316  OLD  CROW 

be  mysteriously  absent  for  a  half  day,  at  least,  and  when 
she  reappeared  she  was  a  little  shyer  of  him,  more  silent 
toward  Aunt  Anne.  Had  she  been  put  to  bed,  or  shut 
up  with  tasks,  to  pay  the  tax  on  her  stolen  pleasures?  He 
never  knew.  He  did  know,  however,  that  when  he  pro 
posed  taking  her  off  to  wild  delights  that  made  her  eyes 
glow  with  anticipation  she  always  refused,  unless  he 
acceded  to  her  plea  to  slip  away :  always  to  slip  away, 
not  to  tell.  Could  it  be  she  had  known  by  a  child's  hard 
road  to  knowledge — of  observation,  silence,  unaided  con 
clusion — that  Aunt  Anne  would  never  allow  them  to  run 
away  to  play?  Curious,  pathetic,  abnormal  even,  to  have 
been  jealous  of  a  child!  Then  he  pulled  himself  up  with 
the  shocked  sense,  now  become  recurrent,  that  he  had 
never  allowed  himself  to  attack  Anne's  fair  dignity  with 
the  weapon  of  unsuppressed  guesswork  about  her  inner 
motives.  He  had  assumed,  he  had  felt  obliged  to  assume, 
they  were  as  fine  as  her  white  hands.  All  the  more 
reason  for  not  assailing  them  now  when  she  was  with 
drawn  into  her  strange  distance.  Yet  one  source  of  won 
der  might  be  allowed  him  to  explore  unhindered:  the 
presence  of  Nan  here  at  his  hearth,  inviting  him  to 
know  her  to  the  last  corner  of  her  honest  mind.  She 
was  even  eager  in  this  loving  hospitality.  He  would 
hardly  have  seen  how  to  define  the  closeness  of  their 
relation.  She  had  turned  her  eyes  from  the  fire  to  meet 
his. 

"Well?"  she  said.  "What?" 

"I  was  thinking  how  queer  it  is,"  said  'Raven,  "we 
never've  been  alone  together  very  much — 'all  told'  as 
Charlotte  would  say — and  here  we  sit  as  if  we  were  going 
to  be  here  forever  and  talk  out  all  the  things." 

"What  things?'9  asked  Nan. 

She  was  not  looking  at  him  now,  but  back  into  the  fire. 


OLD  CROW  317 

and  she  had  a  defensive  air,  as  if  she  expected  to  find 
herself  on  her  guard. 

"Lots  of  'em,"  said  Raven.  "The  money."  His  voice 
sounded  to  her  as  if  he  cursed  it,  and  again  he  pulled 
himself  up.  "What  are  we  going  to  do  with  it?" 

"Aunt  Anne's,"  she  said,  not  as  a  question  but  a  con 
firmation. 

"Yes.  I  can't  refuse  it.  That  means  throwing  it  back 
on  you.  If  I  won't  decide,  I'm  simply  making  you  do  it 
for  me.  I  don't  see  anything  for  it  but  our  talking  the 
thing  out  and  making  up  our  minds  together." 

"No,"  said  Nan.     "I  sha'n't  help  you." 

"You  won't?" 

"I  suppose  it  amounts  to  that." 

"Now  why  the  dickens  not?" 

Nan  kept  up  her  stare  at  the  fire.  She  seemed  to  be 
debating  deeply,  even  painfully. 

"Rookie,"  she  said,  at  last,  in  a  tumultuous  rush,  "I 
never  meant  to  say  this.  I  don't  know  what'll  come  of 
saying  it.  But  you've  had  a  terrible  sort  of  life.  It's 
almost  worse  than  any  life  I  know.  You've  been  smoth 
ered — by  women."  This  last  she  said  with  difficulty,  and 
Haven  reddened,  in  a  reflecting  shame.  "You've  done 
what  they  expected  you  to.  And  it's  all  been  because 
you're  too  kind.  And  too  humble.  You  think  it  doesn't 
matter  very  much  what  happens  to  you." 

"You've  hit  it  there,"  said  Raven,  with  a  sudden  dis 
taste  for  himself.  "It  doesn't." 

"And  if  I  could  clear  your  way  of  every  sort  of 
bugbear  just  by  deciding  things  for  you,  I  wouldn't 
do  it." 

"Don't  try  to  change  my  destiny,"  said  Haven,  pluck 
ing  up  spirit  to  laugh  at  her  and  lead  her  away  from  this 
unexpected  clarity  of  analysis  that  could  only  mean  pain 


318  OLD  CROW 

for  both  of  them.  "I'm  old,  dear.  I'm  not  very  malleable, 
very  plastic.  We're  not,  at  forty-odd." 

"And  if,"  said  Nan  deliberately,  "I  loved  you  better, 
yes,  even  better  than  I  do  (if  I  could!)  I  wouldn't  tell 
you.  It  would  be  putting  bonds  on  you.  It  would  be 
setting  up  the  old  slavery.  The  more  I  loved  you,  the 
more  I  should  be  taking  over  the  old  tyranny :  direct  suc 
cession,  Rookie,  don't  you  see?" 

Here  she  laughed,  though  with  some  slight  bitterness, 
and  he  did  see.  Aunt  Anne  had  ruled  his  life,  to  the  dry 
ing  up  of  normal  springs  in  it.  Nan  didn't  mean  to 
accept  the  inheritance.  He  was  profoundly  touched,  by 
her  giving  so  much  grave  thought  to  it,  at  least. 

"But,  dearest  child,"  he  said,  "what  does  it  matter 
now?  I'm  rather  a  meager  person.  You  couldn't  dress 
me  up  with  attributes,  out  of  your  dear  mind.  I  shouldn't 
know  how  to  wear  'em.  I'm  no  end  grateful  to  you  for 
wanting  to.  But  if  you  gave  me  the  earth  for  a  foot 
ball  now  I'm  too  stiff  to  kick  it.  It's  a  curve,  life  is. 
Don't  you  know  that?  You're  on  the  up-grade,  you  and 
Dick.  I  may  not  have  got  very  far,  but  I'm  on  the  down." 

"And  yet,"  said  Nan,  turning  and  laying  a  finger  on 
the  book  at  her  side,  "you  can  read  a  thing  like  that,  a 
man's  life  turned  inside  out  for  you  to  see,  and  under 
stand  what  he  meant  by  it,  and  then  say  the  game's  up. 
You  make  me  tired." 

If  he  made  her  tired,  she  made  him  unaffectedly  sur 
prised. 

"But,  Nan,"  he  said,  "I  didn't  know  you  caught  on  sc 
tremendously  to  the  old  chap.  I  didn't  know  it  meant  sc 
very  much  to  you." 

"Of  course  it  means  things  to  me,"  she  said.  "Anyway 
because  it  does  to  you.  You  came  up  here  sick,  sick  al 
heart,  sick  in  your  mind,  because  you've  been  througl 


OLD  CROW  319 

the  War  and  you've  seen  what's  underneath  our  proprie 
ties  and  our  hypocrisies.  You  see  we're  still  in  the 
jungle.  And  it's  nearly  killed  you  out,  Rookie,  the  dear 
you  inside  you  that's  not  at  home  in  the  jungle.  You 
wouldn't  believe  me  if  I  told  you  what  kind  of  a  Rookie 
you  are.  Things  hurt  you  like  blazes.  And  then  here 
comes  Old  Crow,  just  as  if  he  rose  out  of  his  grave  and 
pointed  a  finger  at  you.  And  he  says,  'Don't  be  afraid, 
even  of  the  jungle.'  And  suddenly  you  weren't  afraid. 
And  now  you're  afraid  again,  and  talk  about  downward 
curves,  and  all  that.  Why,  'Rookie,  I'm  older  than  you 
are,  years  and  years." 

Raven's  mouth  and  eyes  were  wide  open  in  amazement 
at  her. 

"I'm  damned !"  said  he  conversationally.  "The  way 
you  young  things  go  on.  You  put  us  in  our  places.  Dick 
does,  too.  You've  heard  him.  But,  as  I  remember,  then 
you  had  a  tendency  to  choke  him  off." 

"We  won't  discuss  Dick,"  said  she,  again  prim  as  a 
dish.  "And  I'm  not  putting  you  in  your  place  because  I 
belong  to  my  own  generation.  It's  only  because  you  fill 
up  the  foreground.  I  have  to  look  at  you.  I  can't  see 
anything  else.  I  never  could.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
don't  belong  to  this  generation.  I  haven't  got  their  con 
ceit  and  their  swagger.  Sometimes  I  wish  I  had.  I  can't 
even  talk  their  slang.  I  can't  smoke  a  cigarette." 

Then  Raven  remembered,  as  if  she  had  invited  a  beam 
of  light  to  throw  up  what  would  appeal  to  him  as  her  per 
fections,  that  she  did  seem  to  him  an  alien  among  her 
youthful  kind,  and  a  shy  alien  at  that,  as  if  she  hoped 
they  might  not  discover  how  different  she  was  and  put  her 
through  some  of  those  subtle  tortures  the  young  have  in 
wait  for  a  strange  creature  in  the  herd. 

"No,"  he  said,  "you're  not  like  the   rest  of  them.     I 


320  OLD  CROW 

should  have  said  it  was  because  you're  more  beautiful. 
But  it's  something  beyond  that.  What  is  it?" 

"Don't  you  know?"  said  Nan,  turning  to  him,  incredu 
lous  and  even  a  little  accusatory,  as  if  he  should  long  ago 
have  settled  it  for  her  doubting  mind  whether  it  was  a 
gain  for  her  or  irreparable  loss.  "No,  I  see  you  don't. 
Well,  it's  Aunt  Anne." 

"Aunt  Anne?" 

"Yes.  I  never  had  the  college  life  girls  have  now. 
When  she  sent  me  to  the  seminary,  it  was  the  privates! 
one  she  could  find.  If  she  could  have  exiled  me  to  mid- 
Victorianism  she  would.  I  don't  say  I  should  have  liked 
college  life.  Maybe  I  shouldn't.  Except  the  athletics. 
Anyhow,  I  can  hold  my  own  there.  I  was  enough  of  a 
tomboy  to  get  into  training  and  keep  fit.  And  Rookie — 
now  don't  tell — I  never  do — I  see  lots  of  girls,  perfectly 
nice  girls,  too,  doing  things  Aunt  Anne  would  have  died 
before  she'd  let  me  do.  And  what  do  you  think?  I  don't 
envy  them  because  they're  emancipated.  I  look  at  them, 
and  I  feel  precisely  what  Aunt  Anne  would  feel,  though  I 
don't  seem  to  get  excited  about  it.  The  same  word  comes 
into  my  mind,  that  word  all  the  girls  have  run  away  from : 
unladylike!  Isn't  that  a  joke,  Rookie?  Charlotte  would 
say  it's  the  crowner." 

"You're  a  sweet  thing,  Nan,"  said  Raven,  musing.  He 
did  wonder  whether  she  was  really  in  revolt  against  Aunt 
Anne's  immovable  finger. 

"Smoking !"  said  Nan,  her  eyebrows  raised  in  humorous 
recollection.  "I  used  to  be  half  dead  over  there,  dog  tired, 
keyed  up  to  the  last  notch.  You  know !  I'd  have  given  a 
year  of  life  for  a  cigarette,  when  I  saw  what  the  others 
got  out  of  it.  I  was  perfectly  willing  to  smoke.  I  was 
eager  to.  But  I'd  think  of  Aunt  Anne,  and  I  simply 
couldn't  do  it," 


OLD  CROW  321 

Then  it  seemed  to  him  that,  since  Aunt  Anne's  steel  fin 
ger  had  resulted  in  siu-h  ;i  superfine  product  of  youth, 
they'd  better  not  blame  her  too  radically.  It  was  her 
tyranny,  but  it  was  a  tyranny  lineally  sprung  from  a 
stately  past. 

"I  don't  believe  it  was  Aunt  Anne  alone,"  he  said.  "It 
was  your  remembering  a  rather  fine  inheritance.  Your 
crowd  think  they're  very  much  emancipated,  but  they've 
lost  the  sense  of  form,  beauty,  tradition.  You  couldn't 
go  all  the  way  with  them.  You  couldn't  be  rough-haired." 

"At  any  rate,"  said  Nan,  "I  can't  be  young:  in  the 
sense  they're  young.  I'm  a  'strayed  reveler,'  that's  all. 
But  I  don't  know  why  I'm  painting  a  Sargent  portrait  of 
me.  Yes,  I  do.  I  want  to  squeeze  everything  I  can  out 
of  this  darling  minute  together,  so  when  we  don't  have 
any  more  minutes  I  can  go  back  to  this.  And  you  can 
remember,  in  case  you  ever  need  me,  just  what  sort  of  an 
old  Nan  I  am." 

"And  you  suggest,"  said  Raven,  "my  kidnaping  a  nice 
New  England  woman  and  her  baby  and  carting  them  off 
to  the  Malay  Peninsula." 

Nan  turned  upon  him  delightedly.  He  could  not  know 
what  he  did  for  her  by  juggling  the  Tira  myth  into 
raillery. 

"But  think,  Rookie,"  she  said,  "a  woman  so  beautiful 
she's  more  than  that.  She's  mystery.  Now,  isn't  she 
beautiful?" 

"Beautiful,"  Raven  agreed,  and  the  picture  of  her, 
madonna-like,  in  the  woods,  suddenly  smote  the  eyes  of  his 
mind  and  blinded  them  to  all  but  Tira. 

She  saw  him  wince,  and  went  on  more  falteringly,  but 
still  determined  to  go  all  the  way. 

"Into  a  new  world,  Rookie,  all  ferns  and  palms." 

"And  snakes !" 


OLD  CROW 

"Perfectly  honest,  perfectly  free,  and  no  jungle  except 
the  kind  that  grows  up  in  a  night." 

"And  you,"  said  Raven,  "with  your  New  England  tra 
ditions  and  your  inherited  panic  over  a  cigarette !" 

They  looked  at  each  other  across  the  length  of  the 
hearth,  and  it  all  seemed  delightfully  funny  to  them — 
their  solitude,  their  oneness  of  mind — and  they  began  to 
laugh.  And  at  the  combined  shout  of  their  merriment 
(almost  competitive  it  was,  in  the  eagerness  of  each  to 
justify  the  particular  preciousness  of  the  moment)  the 
door  opened  and  Dick  came  in,  halted,  stared,  in  a 
surprise  that  elicited  one  last  hoot  at  the  unexpectedness 
of  things,  and  indulged  himself  in  a  satirical  comment  of 
greeting,  far  from  what  he  had  intended.  Poor  Dick ! 
he  was  always  making  sage  resolutions  on  the  chance  of 
finding  Raven  and  Nan  together,  but  the  actuality  as 
inevitably  overthrew  him. 

"Oh,"  said  he,  "that's  it,  is  it?     So  I  thought." 

If  he  thought  it,  he  was  none  the  less  unwise  in  saying 
so.  He  knew  that,  knew  the  effect  he  had  produced,  and 
yet  was  powerless  to  modify  it.  Nan  was  plainly  taken 
aback,  and  she  knew  why.  He  was  destroying  her  happy 
moment,  snatching  it  out  of  any  possible  sequence  of 
hours  here  with  Rookie.  Dick  had  come  and  he  would 
stay.  Raven  read  the  boy's  face  and  was  bored.  He  had 
seen  that  look  too  much  of  late.  But  he  rose  and  went 
forward  with  the  appropriate  air  of  welcome. 

"Well,  old  bo}r,"  said  he,  his  hand  on  Dick's  shoulder, 
"why  didn't  you  'phone  up?  There'd  have  been  some 
thing  ready  for  you.  No  matter.  We'll  make  a  raid  on 
the  pantry." 

"I  don't  want  anything,"  said  Dick  morosely. 

His  eyes  never  left  Nan.  They  traveled  from  her  braids 
to  her  feet.  Why,  his  angry  gaze  demanded,  was  she 


OLD  CROW  323 

sitting  here  in  a  beguiling  masquerade — silly,  too!  The 
masquerade  was  silly.  But  it  made  her  into  something 
so  unapproachable  in  the  citadel  of  a  childhood  she  had 
no  lien  on  any  longer  that  his  heart  ached  within  him. 
Except  for  that  one  kiss  in  France — a  kiss  so  cruelly 
repudiated  after  (most  cruelly  because  she  had  made  it 
seem  as  if  it  were  only  a  part  of  her  largess  to  the  War) 
he  had  found  little  pleasure  in  Nan.  Yet  there  could  be 
such  pleasure  with  her.  The  generous  beauties  of  her 
mind  and  heart  looked  to  him  a  domain  large  enough  for 
a  life's  exploring.  But  even  the  woman  who  had  given  him 
the  kiss  in  France  had  vanished,  withdrawn  into  the  little 
girl  Raven  seemed  to  be  forever  wakening  in  her.  He  got 
out  of  his  driving  coat  and  stepped  into  the  hall  to  drop 
it.  When  he  came  back,  Nan  had  made  room  at  the  fire 
and  Raven  had  drawn  up  another  chair. 

"Now,"  said  Raven,  "I'll  forage  for  some  grub." 
At  that,  he  left  them,  and  Nan  thought  bitterly  it  was 
the  cowardice  of  man.     Dick  was  in  the  sulks  and  she  was 
to  suffer  them  alone. 


XXVIII 

Dick,  looking  down  upon  Nan,  had  that  congealed 
aspect  she  alone  had  the  present  power  of  freezing  him 
into.  She  knew  all  the  possibilities  of  that  face.  There 
was  the  angry  look :  that  had  reigned  of  late  when  she 
flouted  or  denied  him.  There  was  the  sulky  frown,  index 
of  his  jealousy  of  Rookie,  and  there  had  been,  what  seemed 
a  long  time  ago,  before  they  went  through  this  disinteg 
rating  turmoil  of  war,  the  look  of  a  boy's  devotion.  Nan 
had  prized  him  very  much  then,  when  he  was  not  flaunting 
angry  rights  over  her.  Now  she  sat  perversely  staring 
into  the  fire,  realizing  that  everything  about  her  angered 
him:  the  childish  vanity  of  her  dress,  assumed,  he  would 
be  sure,  to  charm  the  Rookie  of  old  days  into  renewed 
remembrance.  But  he  had  to  be  faced  finally,  since  Rookie 
was  gone  so  long,  stirring  up  Charlotte  to  the  task  of  a 
cold  bite,  and  with  a  little  shrug  she  lifted  her  eyes  to 
face  exactly  the  Dick  she  had  expected  to  see:  dignified 
reproach  in  every  line.  Nice  boy!  she  had  the  honest 
impartiality  to  give  him  that  grace  only  to  wish  he 
would  let  her  enjoy  him  as  she  easily  could.  What  a  team 
he  and  she  and  Rookie  would  be  if  they  could  only 
eliminate  this  idea  of  marriage.  How  they  could  make 
the  room  ring,  here  by  the  fire,  with  all  the  quips  of  their 
old  memories.  Yet  wouldn't  Dick  have  been  an  interrup 
tion,  even  then?  Wasn't  the  lovely  glow  of  this  one 
evening  the  amazing  reality  of  her  sitting  by  the  fire 
with  Rookie  alone  for  the  first  time  in  many  years,  and, 

324 


OLD  CROW  325 

if  he  fell  into  the  enchantment  of  Malaysia  and  the  mys 
teries  of  an  empty-headed  Tira,  the  last?  And  now  here 
she  was  dreaming  off  on  Rookie  when  she  must,  at  this 
very  instant,  to  seize  any  advantage  at  all,  be  facing 
Dick.  She  began  by  laughing  at  him. 

"Dick,"  she  said,  "how  funny  you  are.  I  don't  know 
much  about  Byron,  but  I  kind  of  think  you're  trying  to 
do  the  old  melancholia  act :  Manfred  or  what  d'you  call 
'em?  You  just  stand  there  like  old  style  opera,  glower 
ing;  if  you  had  a  cloak  you'd  throw  an  end  over  your 
shoulder." 

"Nan!"  said  he,  and  she  was  the  more  out  of  heart 
because  the  voice  trembled  with  an  honest  supplica 
tion. 

"There!"  she  hastened  to  put  in,  "that's  it.  You're 
'choked  with  emotion.'  Why  do  you  want  to  sound  as  if 
you're  speaking  into  a  barrel?  In  another  minute  you'll 
be  talking  'bitterly.'  " 

Dick  was  not  particular  about  countering  her  gibes. 
That  was  unproductive.  He  had  too  much  of  his  own  to 
say. 

"What  do  you  suppose  I'm  here  for?"  he  asked,  as  if, 
whatever  it  might  be,  it  was  in  itself  accusatory. 

"Search  me,"  said  Nan,  with  the  flippancy  he  hated. 

She  knew,  by  instinct  as  by  long  acquaintance,  that 
one  charm  for  him  lay  in  her  old-fashioned  reticences  and 
chiefly  her  ordered  speech.  Almost  he  would  have  liked 
her  to  be  the  girl  Aunt  Anne  had  tried  to  make  her. 
That,  she  paused  to  note,  in  passing,  was  part  of  the 
general  injustice  of  things.  He  could  write  free  verse 
you  couldn't  read  aloud  without  squirming  (even  in  the 
company  of  the  all-knowing  young),  but  she  was  to  lace 
herself  into  Victorian  stays. 

"I  suppose,"   said  she,  "you    came    to   see    whether  I 


OLD  CROW 

mightn't  be  having  the  time  of  my  life  sitting  here  with 
Rookie  by  the  fire." 

"I  did,"  he  frankly  owned.  "Mother  said  you'd  gone 
to  New  York.  So  she  went  on." 

"Now  what  the  dickens  for?  Haven't  I  a  perfect  right 
to  go  to  New  York  without  notice  ?" 

"Why,"  said  Dick,  "you'd  disappeared.  You'd  gone 
away  from  here,  and  you  were  lost,  virtually  lost.  You 
weren't  anywhere." 

"If  she  thought  I  was  in  New  York,  why  didn't  that 
settle  it?  What  did  she  have  to  go  trailing  on  after  me 
for?" 

"Because,"  said  Dick,  "we  didn't  know.  She  wanted  to 
telephone.  I  wouldn't  let  her.  I  couldn't  have  the  Sea- 
burys  started  up.  I  couldn't  have  you  get  into  the 
papers." 

"Into  the  papers !"  said  Nan.  "Heavens !  I  suppose 
if  I'm  not  in  at  curfew  I'm  to  be  arrested." 

"I  let  her  go,"  repeated  Dick.  "But  I  knew  as  well  as 
I  wanted  to  you'd  doubled  back  here  and  you  were  with 
him." 

"Then,  for  God's  sake,"  said  Nan,  in  a  conversational 
tone,  knowing  the  adjuration  would  be  bitter  to  him,  "if 
I  wanted  to  be  with  him,  as  you  put  it — I'm  glad  I  ain't 
a  poet — why  didn't  you  let  me?" 

"Because,"  said  Dick  promptly,  "it's  indecent." 

She  had  no  difficulty  in  facing  him  now.  It  was  a 
cheap  means  of  subjugating,  but,  being  an  advantage,  she 
would  not  forego  it.  And,  indeed,  she  was  too  angry. 

"Dick,"  she  said,  "you're  a  sickening  little  whelp.  More 
than  that,  you're  a  hypocrite.  You  write  yards  and  yards 
of  your  free  verse  to  tell  us  how  bold  and  brave  you  are 
and  how  generally  go-as-you-please  we've  got  to  be  if 
we're  going  to  play  big  Injun,  and  then  you  tell  me  it's 


OLD  CROW  327 

indecent  to  sit  here  with  Rookie,  of  all  people  in  the 
world.  My  God  !  Rookie  !" 

Again  she  had  invoked  her  Maker  because  Dick  would 
shiver  at  the  impropriety.  "No  violence,"  she  thought 
satirically,  remembering  he  was  himself  the  instigator  of 
violence  in  verse.  But  Dick  was  sorry.  He  had  not 
chosen  his  word.  It  had  lain  in  his  angry  mind  and 
leaped  to  be  used.  It  could  not  be  taken  back. 

"You  can't  deny,"  said  he,  "you  are  perfectly  happy 
here  with  him.  Or  you  were  a  minute  ago  before  I  came." 

"No,"  said  Nan,  "I  don't  deny  it.     Is  that  indecent?" 

Now  she  had  the  whip  hand,  for  he  was  not  merely 
angry :  he  was  plainly  suffering.  The  boyish  look  had 
subtly  taken  possession  of  his  face.  This  was  the  Dick 
she  had  loved  always,  next  to  Rookie.  But  his  following 
words,  honest  as  they  were,  lost  him  his  advantage  of  the 
softened  look.  He  was  hanging  to  his  point. 

"Yes,"  he  said.  "He's  old.  You're  young.  So  am  I. 
We  belong  together.  We  can  be  awfully  fond  of  him.  We 
are.  But  it's  got  to  be  in  the  right  way.  He  could  live 
with  us.  We'd  simply  devote  ourselves  to  him.  But  Nan, 
the  world  belongs  to  us.  We're  young." 

At  that  instant  Raven  came  in  and  set  down  his  tray. 
Nan  glanced  up  at  him  fearfully,  but  it  was  apparent  he 
had  not  heard.  She  was  no  longer  angry.  The  occasion 
was  too  big.  Dick  seemed  to  her  to  be  speaking  out  of 
his  ignorance  and  not  from  any  wilful  cruelty.  She  got 
up  and  went  to  Raven,  as  he  stood  there,  put  her  hand 
through  his  arm  and  smiled  up  at  him. 

"Rookie,"  she  said,  with  a  half  laugh  that  was  really 
a  caress,  "darlingest  Rookie!  Charlotte  never  got  that 
supper  together  in  the  world.  You  did  it  yourself,  not 
to  disturb  her.  I  never  saw  so  much  food  at  one  time,  in 
all  my  life." 


328  OLD  CROW 

It  was  a  monstrous  feast,  bread,  butter,  cheese,  ham: 
very  neatly  assembled,  but  for  a  giant's  appetite. 

"We'll  all  have  some,"  sad  Raven.  "Draw  up,  old  son. 
Nan'll  butter  for  us. 

For  the  first  minutes  it  seemed  to  Dick  he  could  not  eat, 
the  lump  in  his  throat  had  risen  so.  But  Nan  buttered 
and  they  did  eat  and  felt  better.  Raven  avoided  looking 
at  them,  wondering  what  they  were  quarreling  about  now. 
It  must,  he  thought,  be  the  way  of  this  new  generation 
starting  out  avowedly  "on  its  own." 


XXIX 

The  blessed  diversion  of  eating  ended,  a  blank  moment 
stared  them  in  the  face.  What  to  say  next?  Were  Nan 
and  Dick,  Raven  wondered,  to  go  on  fighting?  Was  it 
the  inevitable  course  of  up-to-date  courtship?  Perhaps 
the  new  generation,  from  its  outlook  on  elemental  things, 
was  taking  to  marriage  by  capture,  clubbing  the  damsel 
and  striding  off,  her  limpness  flung  over  a  brawny  arm. 
It  seemed  to  him  a  singularly  bare,  unshaded  way  to  the 
rose-leaf  bowers  his  poets  had  been  used  to  sing;  but  un 
doubtedly  the  roads  were  many,  and  this  was  one.  Possi 
bly  the  poets  wouldn't  say  the  same  now.  Dick  ought  to 
know.  But  at  least  there  must  be  no  warfare  here  in  this 
warm  patch  of  shelter  snatched  out  of  the  cold  and  dark. 
His  hand  was  on  Old  Crow's  journal,  Dick's  inheritance, 
he  thought,  as  well  as  his,  and  now  a  fortunate  pretext 
to  stave  off  an  awkward  moment. 

"Run  over  this,"  he  said.  "Nan  and  I've  been  doing 
it.  I  don't  believe  we're  in  any  hurry  for  bed." 

Dick  took  it,  with  no  show  of  interest.  How  should 
he  have  been  interested,  forced  to  switch  his  mind  from 
the  pulsating  dreams  of  youth  to  worn  mottled  covers? 

"What  is  it?"  he  asked  indifferently. 

Raven  was  rather  curious  now.  What  impression  would 
Old  Crow  make,  slipping  in  like  this,  unheralded? 

"Never  mind,"  he  said.  "Run  over  it  and  get  on  to  it, 
if  you  can.  I'd  like  to  know  what  you  think." 

Dick,  without  much  heart,  began  to  read,  and  Raven 

329 


330  OLD  CROW 

lighted  a  pipe.  First,  a  tribute  to  Nan's  abstinence,  he 
passed  her  the  cigarettes,  and  when  she  shook  her  head, 
smiled  back  at  her,  as  if  he  reminded  her  of  secrets  they 
had  together.  Presently  she  got  up,  and  Dick,  closing 
the  book,  threw  it  on  the  table. 

"Bed?"  Raven  asked,  also  getting  up,  and  Nan  said 
good  night  and  was  gone. 

The  two  men  sat  down,  each  with  the  certainty  that 
here  they  were  to  stick  until  something  determining  had 
been  said,  Raven  irritated  by  the  prospect  and  Dick 
angrily  ready. 

"Well,"  said  Raven,  indicating  the  book,  "what  do  you 
think?" 

"That?"  said  Dick  absently.  "Oh,  I  don't  know. 
Somebody  trying  to  write  without  knowing  how?" 

Raven  gave  it  up.  Either  he  had  not  read  far,  or 
he  had  not  hungered  or  battled  enough  to  be  moved 
by  it. 

"Now,  look  here,"  said  Dick,  "I  may  not  be  interested 
in  that,  but  there's  something  I  am  interested  in.  And 
we've  got  to  talk  it  out,  on  the  spot." 

"Well!"  said  Raven.  He  mended  the  fire  which  didn't 
need  it,  and  then  sat  down  and  filled  his  pipe.  He  wasn't 
smoking  so  very  much  but,  he  thought,  with  a  bored 
abandonment  to  the  situation,  gratefully  taking  advan 
tage  of  a  pipe's  proneness  to  go  out.  While  he  attended 
to  it  he  could  escape  the  too  evidently  condemnatory  gaze 
from  those  young  eyes  that  never  wavered,  chiefly  because 
they  could  not  be  deflected  by  a  doubt  of  perfectly  appre 
hending  everything  they  saw. 

"Now,"  said  Dick,  plunging,  "what  do  you  want  to  do 
this  kind  of  thing  for?" 

"What  kind  of  thing?"  asked  Raven,  lighting  up. 
"Smoke?" 


OLD  CROW  381 

Dick  looked  at  him  accusingly,  sure  of  his  own  right- 
ness  and  the  clarity  of  the  issue. 

"You  know,"  he  said.     "This  business.     Compromising 
Nan." 

Raven  felt  that  slight  quickening  of  the  blood,  the 
nervous  thrill  along  the  spine  a  dog  must  feel  when  his 
hair  rises  in  canine  emergency.  He  smoked  silently  while 
he  was  getting  himself  in  hand,  and,  in  the  space  of  it,  he 
had  time  for  a  good  deal  of  rapid  thinking.  The  outrage 
and  folly  of  it  struck  him  first  and  then  the  irony.  Here 
was  Dick,  who  flaunted  his  right  to  leave  nothing  unsaid 
where  realistic  verse  demanded  it,  and  he  was  consigning 
Nan  to  the  decorum  Aunt  Anne  herself  demanded.  Was 
the  young-  animal  of  the  present  day  really  unchanged 
from  the  first  man  who  protected  his  own  by  a  fettering 
seclusion,  simply  because  it  was  his  own?  Was  Dick's 
general  revolt  only  the  yeasty  turmoil  sure  to  take  one 
form  or  another,  being  simply  the  swiftness  of  young 
blood?  Was  his  general  bravado  only  skin  deep?  Raven 
hardly  knew  how  to  take  him.  He  wouldn't  be  angry, 
outwardly  at  least.  The  things  Dick  had  said,  the  things 
he  was  prepared  to  say,  he  would  be  expected  to  resent, 
but  he  must  deny  himself.  It  was  bad  for  the  boy,  and 
more,  a  subtle  slur  on  Nan.  They  mustn't  squabble  over 
her,  as  if  her  sweet  inviolateness  could  be  in  any  way 
touched  by  either  of  them.  Presently  he  took  his  pipe 
out,  looked  at  it  curiously  as  if  it  did  not  altogether  please 
him  and  remarked: 

"Dick,  you're  a  fool." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Dick,  with  a  bitterness  that  curled  his 
lip  a  little,  "I'm  a  young  fool,  too,  I  suppose.  Well, 
thank  God  for  that.  I  am  young,  and  I  know  it,  and 
just  what  I'm  getting  out  of  it  and  what  I've  a  right 
to  get.  You  can't  play  that  game  with  me,  Uncle 


332  OLD  CROW 

Jack.  You  simply  can't  do  it.  The  old  game's  played 
out," 

"And  what,"  said  Raven  mildly,  "is  the  old  game?  And 
what's  the  new  one  going  to  be?  You'll  have  to  tell  me. 
I  don't  know." 

"The  old  game,"  said  Dick,  "was  precisely  what  it 
was  in  politics.  The  old  men  made  the  rules  and  the 
young  were  expected  to  conform.  The  old  men  made  wars 
and  the  young  fought  'em.  The  old  men  lied  and  skulked 
and  the  young  had  to  pull  them  out  of  the  holes  they  got 
into.  I  suppose  you'd  say  the  War  was  won  at  Chequers 
Court.  Well,  I  shouldn't.  I  should  say  it  was  won  by 
the  young  men  who  had  their  brains  blown  out,  and  lost 
their  eyes  and  their  legs." 

"No,"  said  Raven  quietly,  "I  shouldn't  say  the  War 
was  won  at  Chequers  Court.  We  needn't  fight  over  that. 
The  thing  that  gets  me  is  why  we  need  to  fight  at  all. 
There's  been  a  general  armistice  and  Eastern  Europe 
doesn't  seem  to  have  heard  of  it.  They  go  on  scrapping. 
You  don't  seem  to  have  heard  of  it  either.  You  come 
home  here  and  find  me  peaceably  retired  to  Charlotte  and 
Jerry  and  my  Sabine  Farm,  and  you  proceed  to*  declare 
war  on  me.  What  the  devil  possesses  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Dick,  the  muscle  twitching  in  his  lip,  "I 
do  find  you  here.  And  Nan  with  you." 

"Dick,"  said  Raven  sharply,  "we'll  leave  Nan  out  of 
this." 

Dick,  though  the  tone  was  one  that  had  called  him  to 
attention  years  ago,  told  himself  he  wasn't  afraid  of  it 
now.  Those  old  bugaboos  wouldn't  work. 

"I  am  going,"  he  said,  "to  marry  Nan." 

"Good  for  you,"  responded  Raven.  "No  man  could  do 
better." 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  countered  Dick,  '^ou're  not 


OLD  CROW  333 

bluffing?  Or  do  you  actually  want  to  let  her  marry  me 
and  you — you'd  continue  this  under  my  nose?" 

Raven  stared  at  him  a  full  minute,  and  Dick  angrily 
met  him.  "Stare  away,"  Dick  was  thinking.  "I'm  in  the 
right.  I  can  look  you  down." 

"Dick,"  said  Raven  finally,  "I  called  you  a  fool.  It 
isn't  such  a  bad  thing  to  be  a  fool.  We're  most  of  us 
fools,  of  one  sort  or  another.  But  don't  let  me  think 
3Tou're  a  dirty-minded  little  cad.  Now  I  don't  want  to 
bring  Nan  into  this,  but  I  rather  think  I've  got  to.  What 
are  you  driving  at?  Come,  out  with  it!" 

To  his  wonderment,  his  pain  amounting  to  a  shock  of 
perplexity  and  grief,  he  saw  Dick's  face  redden  and  the 
tears  spring  to  his  eyes.  How  horribly  the  boy  cared, 
perhaps  up  to  the  measure  of  Nan's  deserts,  and  yet  with 
what  a  childish  lack  of  values  !  For  he  had  no  faith  either 
in  Nan  or  in  old  Jack.  The  ties  of  blood,  of  friendship, 
were  not  holding.  He  was  as  jealous  as  Othello,  and  no 
sane  certainties  were  standing  him  in  stead.  Dick,  feel 
ing  the  painful  tears,  felt  also  the  shame  of  them.  He 
wanted  to  answer  on  the  instant,  now  Raven  had  given 
him  his  chance ;  but  so  unused  was  he  to  the  menace  of 
betraying  emotion  that  he  was  not  even  sure  of  not  blub 
bering  like  a  boy.  He  swallowed  and  came  out  with  it: 

"You've  got  some  sort  of  hold  on  her  nobody  else  has. 
You've  hynotized  her.  She  eats  out  of  your  hand." 

Raven,  in  despair,  sat  looking  at  him.  He  ought,  he 
felt,  to  be  able  to  laugh  it  all  away,  but  he  was  too  be 
wildered  and  too  sorry. 

"Dick,"  said  he  finally,  "I  shall  have  to  say  it  again. 
You're  an  awful  fool.  Nan  and  I  were  always  the  best 
of  friends.  I  rather  think  I  have  known  her  in  a  way 
none  of  the  rest  of  you  have.  But — hypnotized  her! 
Look  at  me,  Dick.  Remember  me  plodding  along  while 


334  OLD  CROW 

you  grew  up ;  think  what  sort  of  a  chap  I  am.  You 
won't  find  anything  spectacular  about  me.  Never 
has  been,  never  will  be.  And  Nan,  of  all  people!  little 
Nan!" 

Dick  forgot  the  imminence  of  a  breaking  voice  and 
humid  eyes.  Raven,  he  felt,  wasn't  playing  the  game. 
He  was  skulking  out  of  it. 

"Do  you  deny,"  he  said,  in  a  voice  so  loud  and  hoarse 
that  it  startled  him  as  it  did  Raven,  "that  you're  in  love 
with  her?" 

"Good  God!"  said  Raven.  He  rose,  laid  his  pipe  on 
the  mantel  and  stood,  trembling,  even  in  his  clenched 
hands.  "What  is  there  to  answer,"  he  got  out  at  length, 
"to  a  question  like  that?  You've  just  reminded  me  I'm 
past  my  youth.  Why  don't  you  remember  it  yourself 
when  it'll  do  you  some  good?  I'm  an  old  chap,  and 
you " 

"You're  as  fit  as  ever  you  were  in  your  life,"  said  Dick, 
as  if  he  grudged  it  to  him.  "And  more  fascinating,  I  sup 
pose,  to  a  girl  like  her.  There's  something  pathetic  about 
it.  It's  half  pity,  too !  Nothing  so  dangerous  in  the 
world." 

Raven  swung  round,  walked  to  the  window  and,  hands 
in  his  pockets,  stood  looking  out.  In  love  with  Nan !  well, 
he  did  love  Nan  better  than  any  created  thing.  All  the 
old  tests,  the  old  obediences,  would  be  nothing  to  him  if  he 
could  consecrate  them  to  Nan,  her  happiness,  her  safety 
in  this  dark  world.  How  about  his  life?  Yes,  he  would 
give  that,  a  small  thing,  if  Nan  needed  the  red  current  of 
it  to  quicken  her  own.  But  "in  love"  as  Dick  understood 
it!  If  you  were  to  judge  Dick's  comprehension  of  it  from 
his  verse,  love  was  a  sex  madness,  a  mortal  lure  for  the 
earth's  continuance,  by  the  earth  begot.  And  who  had 
unconsciously  held  out  that  lure  to  him  but  the  woman  of 


OLD  CROW  335 

mystery  up  there  on  the  road  in  that  desolate  house  with 
her  brutal  husband  and  her  deficient  child?  He  had  seen 
the  innocent  lure,  he  had  longed  to  put  out  his  hand  to 
the  hand  unconsciously  beckoning.  Through  the  chill 
wintry  night  the  message  came  to  him  now.  And  only 
Nan  could  understand  that  the  message  might  come  and 
that  it  was  a  part  of  the  earth  and  to  be  forgotten,  like  a 
hot  wind  or  a  thrilling  song  out  of  the  dark — Nan,  his 
darling,  a  part  of  him,  his  understanding  mind,  as  well  as 
the  fiber  of  his  heart.  Suddenly  he  turned  on  Dick  who 
was  watching  him,  ready,  it  seemed,  to  pounce  on  his  first 
change  of  look. 

"Dick,"  he  said,  "I  adore  Nan." 

"Yes,"  said  Dick,  "I  know  you  do.     I  told  you " 

"But,"    broke   in   Raven,    "you    don't   know    anything 
about  it." 

"Oh,"  said  Dick,  "then  I  don't  adore  her,  too." 
Raven  reflected.  No,  his  inner  mind  told  him,  there 
was  no  community  of  understanding  between  them.  How 
should  Dick  traverse  with  him  the  long  road  of  rebuff  and 
downfall  he  had  traveled?  How  should  youth  ever  be 
expected  to  name  the  cup  it  has  not  tasted?  For  Dick, 
he  thought  again,  wrhat  is  known  as  love  was  a  simple, 
however  overwhelming,  matter  of  the  mounting  blood,  the 
growing  year.  For  him  it  would  be  the  ashes  of  forgotten 
fire,  the  strange  alembic  mixed  of  bitter  with  the  sweet. 
In  that  moment  he  faced  an  acknowledged  regret  that  he 
had  not  lived  the  normal  life  of  marriage  at  the  start,  the 
quieting  of  foolish  fevers,  the  witness  of  children.  We 
are  not,  he  reflected,  quite  solvent  unless  we  pay  tribute 
before  we  go.  He  mused  off  into  the  vista  of  life  as  it 
accomplishes  itself  not  in  great  triumphal  sweeps,  but  fit 
ful  music  hushed  at  intervals  by  the  crash  of  brutal  mis 
chance,  and  only,  at  the  end,  a  solution  of  broken  chords. 


336  OLD  CROW 

Meantime  Dick  watched  him,  and  Raven  at  last,  feeling 
the  boy's  eyes  on  him,  came  awake  with  a  start. 

"Yes,  Dick,"  he  answered  gently,  "of  course  you  love 
her.  And  it  ought  to  do  you  good.  It's  a  big  thing  to 
love  Nan." 

"Very  well  then,"  said  Dick,  his  voice  trembling  a  little 
in  answer  to  that  gentler  tone,  "you  let  her  alone,  can't 
you?  Nan's  a  different  girl  when  she's  with  you.  It's 
no  use  denying  it.  You  do  hynotize  her." 

"Dick,"  said  Raven,  "that's  a  beastly  thing  to  say.  If 
you  mean  it  to  be  as  offensive  as  it  sounds,  you  ought  to 
be  booted  for  it." 

"Oh,"  said  Dick,  with  a  simple  certainty  in  what  he 
knew,  "I  don't  blame  you  as  I  should  any  other  fellow 
that  wasn't  going  through  what  you  are.  That  would  be 
a  simple  matter  to  deal  with:  a  chap  that  knew  what  he 
was  doing.  You  don't,  old  man.  You  may  not  know  it, 
but  you  don't." 

"For  the  land's  sake!"  said  Raven,  echoing  Charlotte, 
"And  what,  again  for  the  land's  sake,  am  I  going 
through?" 

"You  know,"  said  Dick  uneasily  because  he  did  hope  to 
avoid  putting  it  into  words.  "Cafard." 

Raven  had  one  of  his  moments  of  silence,  getting  hold 
of  himself,  taking  the  matter  in,  with  its  forgotten  enor 
mity. 

"So,"  he  said,  "you've  adopted  your  mother's  word  for 
it.  I  hadn't  realized  that." 

"Oh,  Mum's  no  such  fool,"  said  Dick.  "She  may  be 
an  aggravation  and  a  curse — I'll  own  that — but  she's  up 
to  date.  Why,  Jack,  anybody  that  ever  knew  you'd 
know  you're  not  yourself." 

"No,"  thought  Raven,  "few  of  us  are  ourselves.  We've 
been  through  the  War,  my  son.  So  have  you;  but  you 


OLD  CROW  337 

didn't  have  such  a  brittle  old  world  inside  you  to  try  to 
put  together  again  after  it  was  smashed.  Your  inner 
world  was  in  the  making.  Whatever  you  might  feel  in 
its  collision  with  the  runaway  planet  of  the  mad  human 
mind,  it  could  right  itself;  its  atoms  might  cohere." 

"You  needn't  think,"  proceeded  Dick  generously  if  a 
trifle  too  magnificently,  "I  can't  see.  There's  a  lot  of 
things  I  see  that  don't  bear  talking  about.  I've  pitched 
into  you  about  Nan,  but  you  needn't  suppose  I  don't 
know  it's  all  a  matter  of  hidden  complexes." 

Again  recurring  to  Charlotte  in  this  moment  of  need, 
Raven  reflected  that  he  didn't  know  whether  he  was  afoot 
or  a-horseback. 

"You  don't  mind,  I  hope,"  he  said,  with  humility  be 
fore  this  perfectly  equipped  intelligence,  "explaining  a 
little." 

"Why,"  said  Dick,  "there's  all  your  previous  life.  It's 
a  case  of  inhibition.  There  was  Miss  Anne." 

"Stop,"  said  Raven,  his  curiosity  over  the  boy's  mind 
dying  in  a  crash.  "Stop  right  there,  Dick ;  you're  making 
a  fool  of  yourself.  Now  we'll  go  to  bed." 

He  got  up  and  waited,  and  Dick,  sulkily,  rose  too. 

"You  needn't  think,"  he  began,  and  Raven  broke  in: 

"You  needn't  think  I  shall  stand  another  word  of  your 
half-baked  psycho-deviltries.  You  can  believe  what  you 
like.  It'll  harm  nobody  but  yourself.  But  you  don't  talk 
it  here,  or  out  you  go.  Now!" 

The  last  word  meant  he  was  waiting  to  put  out  the 
light  and  Dick,  without  another  look  at  him,  strode  out 
of  the  room,  snatched  his  suit-case  and  went  up  the  stairs. 
Raven  heard  the  decisive  click  of  his  door  and,  his  own 
heart  beating  in  a  quick  response  to  what  he  knew  must 
happen,  turned  on  the  light  again  and  stood  there  silent, 
waiting.  It  did  happen.  A  soft  rustle,  like  a  breeze  blow- 


338  OLD  CROW 

ing  down  the  stairs,  and  Nan  came  in.  She  had  taken 
off  her  child's  dress,  as  if  to  show  him  she  had  left  their 
game  behind  her.  The  long  braids  were  pinned  up,  and 
she  wore  her  dark  walking  dress.  She  was  paler,  much 
older,  and  he  was  renewedly  angry  with  Dick  for  banish 
ing  the  Nan  that  was  but  an  hour  ago.  Perhaps  that 
Nan  would  never  come  back. 

"Darling  Rookie,"  she  said,  so  softly  that  the  sound  of 
it  could  not  have  got  half  way  up  the  stairs,  "what's  it  all 
about?" 

"About  you,  Nan,"  he  answered,  and  denied  himself  the 
darling  Nan  he  had  for  her.  "And  being  in  love.  And 
Dick's  wanting  you." 

"It's  more  than  that,"  said  Nan  wistfully.  "He's  been 
at  you  somehow.  He's  dug  ditches  across  your  dear  fore 
head  and  down  your  cheeks.  What  d'he  say,  Rookie? 
What  d'you  say  to  him?" 

Raven  shook  his  head.  He  had  no  idea  of  inviting  her 
into  the  psycho-analytic  ward  of  Dick's  mind. 

"Nan,"  he  said,  "the  boy's  unhappy.  He's  in  love  with 
you.  No  doubt  about  it." 

Nan,  on  her  part,  had  nothing  to  say  to  this. 

"What  made  you  change  your  dress?"  asked  Raven. 
"You  give  me  a  funny  feeling,  as  if  you'd  put  the  little 
Nan  to  bed  and  come  down  here  to  say  you're  going,  in 
a  minute,  and  never  coming  back." 

"I  am  going,"  said  Nan,  "only  not  in  a  minute.  Char 
lotte  says  Jerry  shall  take  me  to  the  early  train." 

"Now,  by  George !"  said  Raven,  so  loudly  she  put  her 
finger  to  her  lip,  "if  that's  what  Dick's  done,  he  shall  go 
himself,  and  know  the  reason,  too.  Spoil  my  visit  with 
you,  break  it  all  up  ?  Why,  I  never  had  a  visit  from  you 
before." 

"It's  broken,"    said   Nan.      "You   couldn't   put  it   to- 


OLD  CROW  339 

gether  again."  The  red  had  come  into  her  cheeks  and  her 
eyes  showed  a  surface  glitter  he  did  not  know.  "I'm  go 
ing  to  leave  you  to  Tenney — and  Tira — and  your  destiny 
—and  Old  Crow." 

"Is  this  a  part  of  your  scheme?"  asked  Raven  roughly. 
He  was  curiously  dashed,  almost  shamed  by  her  repudi 
ating  him.  "You're  as  bad  as  Dick.  He's  been  bringing 
all  his  psychopathic  patter  to  bear  on  me,  and  you're 
deserting  me.  Oh,  come !  Let's  be  safe  and  sane,  like  the 
Fourth." 

"So  we  will  be,"  said  Nan.  She  was  retreating  toward 
the  door.  There  were  simple  natural  things  she  wanted 
at  that  moment.  She  wanted  to  go  to  him,  put  her  arms 
about  him,  mother  or  child  arms,  as  he  might  wish,  and 
bid  him  a  good-by  that  would  wrap  him  about  like  a  cloak 
while  they  were  absent  one  from  the  other.  He  should 
have  her  lips  as  he  had  her  heart.  Nan  was  an  adven 
turer  on  the  high  seas  of  life.  She  cared  very  little  whether 
her  boat  rode  the  wave  or  sank,  so  it  could  unload  the 
gold  and  gems  it  carried  on  the  sand  of  the  world  she 
loved.  Rookie  was  the  home  of  her  heart.  The  gold  was 
all  for  him.  But  if  he  did  not  want  it — and  meantime 
she  was  at  the  door.  "Don't  get  up,"  she  said,  "to  see 
me  off.  If  you  do,  he  will,  too,  and  there'll  be  more  fire 
works.  No,  no,  Rookie.  Don't  look  like  that.  I'm  not 
hateful  about  him,  really,  only  he  has  spoiled  my  fun." 

"Why  you  should  go,"  said  Raven,  advancing ;  "why 
you  should  leave  this  house  just  because  he's  come!" 

"No  fun !"  said  Nan.  "Do  you  see  us,  the  three  of  us, 
sitting  down  to  meals  together?  No,  Rookie.  Can't  be 
done.  Good  night." 

Here  she  did  turn  definitely  and  went  up  the  stairs, 
and  Raven  presently  followed.  In  his  room  he  stood  for  a 
moment  thinking,  not  of  Dick,  who  wras  troublesome,  in 


340  OLD  CROW 

an  irritating  way  incident  to  biting  young  cubs  just 
aware  of  their  teeth,  but  of  the  challenge  that  was  Nan. 
Here  she  was,  all  beauty,  all  wisdom,  in  the  natal  gifts  of 
her,  telling  him,  with  every  breath,  she  loved  him  and 
only  him.  And  yet,  his  knowledge  of  life  was  quick  to  an 
swer,  it  was  the  accretion  of  long  hungers,  the  sum  of  all 
desires  since  she  was  little  and  consigned  to  Aunt  Anne's 
delicate  frigidities  for  nurture  and,  as  the  event  proved, 
for  penury.  She  had  no  conception  of  a  love  as  irre 
sistible  as  hers  was  now  abounding.  In  a  year  or  two, 
youth  would  meet  her  on  the  road  of  youth,  and  they 
would  kiss  and  old  Rookie  would  become  the  dim  duty  of 
remembered  custom.  And  as  he  thought  these  things,  his 
overwhelming  revolt  against  earth  and  its  cruelty  came 
over  him,  and  he  stood  there  gripping1  his  hands  into  their 
palms,  again  at  open  war  with  life.  It  was  a  question 
without  an  answer,  a  hunger  unfed,  a  promise  broken. 
Eternal  life  was  the  soporific  distilled  by  man,  in  his 
pathetic  cunning,  to  dull  the  anguish  of  anticipated  death. 
Standing  there  in  the  silence,  he  felt  the  waves  of  lone 
liness  going  over  him,  and  thought  of  Nan  in  her  chamber 
across  the  hall,  angelic  in  her  compassion,  her  arms  ready 
for  him  as  a  mother  is  ready  for  her  child.  The  moon 
light  made  arabesques  on  the  walls,  and  he  walked  to  the 
window  with  an  instinctive  craving  for  the  open.  He  stood 
gripping  the  casing  with  both  hands  and  looking  up  over 
the  hillside  where  also  the  light  lay  revealingly.  Up  there 
was  the  hut  where  Tira  might  be  now  if  Tenney  had  not 
wounded  himself,  fleeing  in  her  turn  from  earthly  cruelty. 
Up  there  Old  Crow  had  lived  in  his  own  revolt  against 
earth  cruelty.  And,  with  the  thought,  Old  Crow  seemed 
to  be,  not  on  the  hillside,  but  beside  him,  reading  to  him 
the  testimony  of  the  mottled  book,  but  more  insistently,  in 
a  clearer  voice.  If  it  could  be  so,  if  God  had  intention,  not 


OLD  CROW  34,1 

only  toward  his  own  colossal  inventiveness,  but  as  touching 
the  well-being  of  man — yes,  and  of  the  other  creatures,  too, 
the  pathetically  oppressing  and  oppressed — if  He  had 
given  man  the  problem  with  no  solution  indicated,  to  work 
it  out  as  he  had  worked  out  pottery  and  fabrics,  and  light 
and  talking  over  space — always  in  conformity  to  law — it 
was  stupendous.  No  matter  how  many  million  men  went 
to  the  building  of  the  safeguarding  reefs,  no  matter 
through  what  blood  and  tears  the  garden  of  the  earth  was 
watered  if  the  flower  of  faith  could  grow  at  last. 

"That  is  my  legacy  to  the  boy,"  he  seemed  to  hear  Old 
Crow  repeating.  "He  must  not  be  afraid." 

And  as  he  was  sinking  off  to  sleep  he  had  an  idea  he  was 
praying,  perhaps  to  God;  or  was  it  to  Old  Crow?  At  any 
rate,  he  was  saying: 

"For  God's  sake  look  out  for  Nan.  You  don't  need  to 
make  it  so  devilish  hard  for  Nan." 

He  was  downstairs  early.  At  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
stood  Charlotte,  waiting.  She  looked — what?  compas 
sionate? 

"She's  gone,"  said  Charlotte.  "Jerry  was  up  'fore 
light." 

"Gone?"  echoed  Raven.  "At  this  time  of  day?  What 
for?  She'll  have  an  hour  to  wait." 

"She  would  have  it  so,"  said  Charlotte.  "She  was  ter 
rible  anxious  to  git  off." 

So,  Raven  thought,  she  didn't  want  to  see  either  of 
them.  She  was  tired  of  them,  of  him  with  his  stiff  with 
drawals  and  Dick's  young  puppyhood.  He  ran  upstairs, 
snatched  some  old  riding  breeches  out  of  a  closet,  put 
them  on  and,  without  a  word  to  Charlotte,  went  to  the 
barn.  But  her  eye  was  on  him  and  she  called  out  of  the 
shed  door: 

"You  took  your  saddle  with  you.     Don't  you  know  you 


342  OLD  CROW 

did?  There's  nothin'  but  your  father's  hangin'  there,  old 
as  the  hills." 

Raven  did  not  answer,  or  even  turn  his  head.  He  went 
into  the  harness  room,  found  the  old  saddle  hanging  in  its 
place,  led  out  Nellie,  surprised  at  being  expected  to  leave 
her  oats,  saddled  her  and  rode  away.  He  was  angry,  with 
Nan,  with  all  the  childish  trouble  of  the  business,  and — as 
two  neighbors  agreed,  seeing  him  gallop  past — rode  like 
the  devil,  yet  not  coming  upon  Nan  and  Jerry  until  they 
were  at  the  station  platform.  Nan  saw  him  first.  She  was 
gloriously  glad,  waving  her  hand  and  laughing  out.  Jerry 
stood  with  mouth  open,  silent  but  incurious,  and  Raven 
dismounted  and  threw  him  the  reins. 

"Hitch  her  behind,"  he  said.  "I'll  go  back  with  you. 
Got  something  extra  to  blanket  her?" 

He  came  up  to  Nan,  and  they  took  hands  and  went  into 
the  waiting  room  together.  It  was  steaming  hot  from  the 
monster  stove  and  they  retreated  again  to  the  platform. 

"Come  out  and  walk,"  said  Raven,  "up  to  Pine  Grove. 
You've  got  an  hour,  you  little  simpleton.  What  did  you 
run  away  for?" 

The  station  is  in  a  cluster  of  houses,  awake  early  every 
morning  when  the  milk  goes  away.  But  the  road  across 
the  track  leads  up  a  little  rise  into  Pine  Grove,  where 
church  and  sociables  have  picnics,  the  merrier  for  the 
neighborliness  of  the  few  trains.  Raven  and  Nan  climbed 
the  rise  almost  at  a  run,  and  when  they  reached  the  shad 
owing  pines,  looked  in  at  the  pure  spaces,  remembering, 
for  the  first  time,  the  snow  would  bar  them  out.  They 
must  keep  to  the  road. 

"Forty-eight  minutes,"  said  Raven.  "We'll  walk  twenty 
and  then  cut  back.  Come  on." 

They  walked  a  little,  raced  a  little,  talked — not  much — 
and  laughed  a  great  deal.  Raven  was  in  the  highest 


OLD  CROW  343 

spirits,  sure  he  was  sending  her  off  happy,  since  she  would 
go.  Never  afterward  could  they  remember  what  they 
talked  about:  only  it  seemed  a  fortunate  moment  stolen 
from  the  penury  of  years.  Again  he  took  out  his  watch. 

"Time's  up !"  he  said,  and  they  went  back. 

The  station  was  alive  with  its  small  activities.  Jerry 
was  walking  Nellie  up  and  down.  The  train  came  in  and 
when  Nan  left  him  Raven  remembered  they  had  not  said 
good-by.  There  was  a  kind  of  permanence  in  it ;  the 
moment  had  cemented  something  into  bonds.  When  she 
had  gone  he  and  Jerry  got  into  the  pung  and  drove  away 
leading  Nellie,  and  then  Raven  remembered  he  had  not 
breakfasted.  They  talked  horse  all  the  way  home,  and 
when  Dick,  appearing  on  the  porch,  called  to  them : 

"What  you  got  Nellie  for?" 

Raven  answered  cheerfully: 

"I  took  a  notion." 

Then  he  and  Dick  went  in  to  breakfast,  and  Nan's  name 
was  not  mentioned.  Charlotte,  Raven  concluded,  had  told 
the  boy  she  was  gone.  He  seemed  to  detect  in  Dick  some 
watchful  kindness  toward  himself,  the  responsible  care 
attendants  manifest  toward  the  incapable.  Dick  was,  he 
concluded,  bent  on  therapeutic  measures. 


XXX 

Tira,  from  the  forenoon  of  Tenney's  accident,  entered 
on  uneventful  days.  He  lowered  over  his  helplessness ;  he 
was  angry  with  it.  But  the  anger  was  not  against  her, 
and  she  could  bear  it.  For  the  first  time  she  saw  his 
activities  fettered,  and  the  mother  in  her  answered.  She 
ventured  no  outspoken  sympathy,  but  he  was  dependent 
on  her  and  in  that,  much  as  it  chafed  him,  she  found 
solace.  He  was  chained  to  his  chair,  his  wounded  foot 
on  a  (rest,  and  he  had  no  diversions.  Tira  sometimes 
wondered  what  he  was  thinking  when  he  sat  looking  out 
at  the  road,  smooth  with  the  grinding  of  sleds  and  slip 
ping  of  sleighs.  Once  she  brought  the  Bible  and  laid  it 
before  him  on  a  stand.  If  its  exposition  was  so  precious 
to  him  at  evening  meeting,  there  would  be  comfort  in  it 
now.  But  he  glanced  at  her  in  what  looked  like  a  quick 
suspicion — did  it  mean  he  thought  she  meant  to  taunt  him 
with  the  unreality  of  his  faith? — and,  after  it  had  lain 
there  a  forenoon  untouched,  he  said  to  her  uneasily : 

"You  put  that  away." 

She  took  it  back  to  its  place  on  the  parlor  stand  under 
Grandsir  Tenney's  hatchet-faced  photograph,  wondering 
in  her  heart  why  it  wras  not  what  she  had  heard  them 
read  of  God :  "A  very  present  help  in  time  of  trouble."  If 
you  knew  it  was  so,  Tira  reasoned,  you  never  had  to  fret 
yourself  any  more.  And  if  that  place  was  waiting  for  you 
— the  good  place  they  talked  about — even  a  long  lifetime 
was  not  too  much  to  face  before  you  got  to  it.  After  she 

344 


OLD  CROW  345 

had  laid  the  book  down  and  turned  away  from  it  to  cross 
the  ordered  stillness  of  the  room,  she  stopped,  with  a 
sudden  hungry  impulse,  and  opened  it  at  random.  "Let 
not  your  heart  be  troubled,"  she  read,  and  closed  it  again, 
quickly  lest  the  next  words  qualify  so  rich  a  message.  It 
might  say  further  on  that  you  were  not  to  be  troubled  if 
you  fulfilled  the  law  and  gospel,  and  that,  she  knew,  was 
only  fair.  But  in  her  dearth  she  wanted  no  sacerdotal 
bargaining.  She  needed  the  heavens  to  rain  down  plenty 
while  she  held  out  her  hands  to  take.  When  she  entered 
the  kitchen  again  Tenney,  glancing  round  at  her,  saw 
the  change  in  her  look.  She  was  flushed,  her  mouth  was 
tremulous,  and  her  eyes  humid.  He  wondered,  out  of  his 
ready  suspicion,  whether  she  had  seen  anyone  going  by. 

"What's  the  matter?"  he  asked  sharply. 

"Nothin's  the  matter,"  she  answered.  But  her  hands 
were  trembling.  She  was  like  Mary  when  she  had  seen 
her  Lord. 

"Who's  gone  by?"  he  persisted.  "I  didn't  hear  no 
bells." 

"No,"  said  Tira.  "I  don't  believe  anybody's  gone  by, 
except  the  choppers.  It's  a  proper  nice  day  for  them." 

The  child  woke  and  cried  from  the  bedroom  and  she 
brought  him  out  in  the  pink  sweetness  of  his  sleep,  got  the 
little  tub  and  began  to  give  him  his  bath  by  the  fire.  As 
she  bent  over  him  and  dried  his  smooth  soft  flesh,  the 
passion  of  motherhood  rose  in  her  and  she  forgot  he  was 
"not  right,"  and  sang  a  low,  formless  song.  When  he 
was  bathed  she  stood  him  naked  on  her  knee,  and  it  was 
then  she  found  Tenney  including  them  both  in  the  livid 
look  she  knew.  And  she  saw  what  he  saw.  The  child's 
hair  was  more  like  shining  copper  every  day,  his  small  nose 
had  the  tiniest  curve.  By  whatever  trick  of  nature,  which 
is  implacable,  he  was  not  like  her,  he  was  not  like  Tenney. 


346  OLD  CROW 

He  was  a  message  from  her  bitter,  ignorant  past.  Her 
strong  shoulders  began  to  shake  and  her  hands  that 
steadied  the  child  shook,  too,  so  that  he  gave  a  little  whim 
per  at  finding  himself  insecure. 

"Isr'el,"  she  broke  out,  "before  God !" 

"Well,"  said  he,  in  the  snarl  she  had  heard  from  him  at 
those  times  when  his  devil  quite  got  the  better  of  him, 
"what?  What  you  got  to  tell?" 

"It  ain't  so,"  she  said,  her  voice  broken  by  her  chat 
tering  lips.  "Before  God,  it  ain't  so." 

"So  ye  know  what  I  mean,"  he  jeered,  and  even  at  the 
moment  she  had  compassion  for  him,  reading  his  unhappy 
mind  and  knowing  he  hurt  himself  unspeakably.  "Ye 
know,  or  ye  wouldn't  say  'tain't  so." 

Words  of  his  own  sprang  up  in  her  memory  like  wit 
nesses  against  him,  half  phrases  embodying  his  suspicion 
of  her,  wild  accusations  when,  like  a  drunken  man,  he 
had  let  himself  go.  But  this  he  did  not  remember.  She 
knew  that.  Shut  up  in  his  cell  of  impeccable  righteous 
ness,  he  believed  he  had  dealt  justly  with  her  and  no 
more.  She  would  not  taunt  him  with  his  words.  She  had 
a  compassion  for  him  that  reached  into  his  future  of  pos 
sible  remorse.  Tira  saw,  and  had  seen  for  a  long  time,  a 
catastrophe,  a  "wind-up"  before  them  both.  Sometimes 
it  looked  like  a  wall  that  brought  them  up  short,  some 
times  a  height  they  were  both  destined  to  fall  from  and  a 
gulf  ready  to  receive  them,  and  she  meant,  if  she  could,  to 
save  him  from  the  recognition  of  the  wall  as  something  he 
had  built  or  the  gulf  as  something  he  had  dug.  As  she  sat 
looking  at  him  now,  wide-eyed,  imploring,  and  the  child 
trod  her  knee  impatiently,  a  man  went  past  the  window 
to  the  barn.  It  was  Jerry,  gone  to  fodder  the  cattle,  and 
Jerry  brought  Raven  to  her  mind  who,  if  he  was  obeying 
her  by  absence,  was  none  the  less  protecting  her.  The 


OLD  CROW  347 

trouble  of  her  face  vanished  and  she  drew  a  quick  breath 
Tenney  was  quick  to  note. 

"Who's  that?"  he  asked  her  sharply,  turning  in  his 
chair  to  command  the  other  window. 

"Jerry,"  she  said.  Her  heart  stilled,  and  she  began 
to  dress  the  child,  with  her  mother's  deftness.  "He  comes 
a  little  early  to  fodder,  'fore  he  does  his  own." 

"I  dunno,"  said  Tenney,  irritably  because  he  had  to 
wear  out  his  spleen,  "why  you  can't  fodder  the  cows 
when  anybody's  laid  up.  There's  women  that  do  it  all 
the  time  if  their  folks  are  called  away." 

"Why,  I  could,"  said  Tira,  with  a  clear  glance  at  him, 
"only  he  won't  let  me." 

"What's  he  got  to  do  with  it."  said  Tenney,  in  surprise. 
"Won't  let  ye?  Jerry  Slate  won't  let  ye?  Jerry  ain't 
one  to  meddle  nor  make.  I  guess  if  you  told  him  'twas 
your  place  to  do  it  an'  you'd  ruther  stan'  up  to  it,  he'd 
have  no  more  to  say." 

The  blood  came  again  to  her  face.  She  had  almost,  she 
felt,  spoken  Raven's  name,  and  a  swift  intuition  told  her 
she  must  bury  even  the  thought  of  it. 

"There  ain't,"  she  said,  "two  nicer  folks  in  this  town 
ship  than  Charlotte  an'  Jerry,  nor  two  that's  readier  to 
turn  a  hand." 

Tenney  was  silent,  and  Jerry  did  the  chores  and  went 
home.  Sometimes  he  came  to  the  house  to  ask  how 
Tenney  was  getting  on,  but  to-day  he  had  to  get  back  to 
his  own  work. 

This  was  perhaps  a  week  after  Tenney's  accident,  when 
he  was  getting  impatient  over  inaction,  and  next  day 
the  doctor  came  and  pronounced  the  wound  healing  well. 
If  Tenney  had  a  crutch,  he  might  try  it  carefully,  and 
Tenney  remembered  Grandsir  had  used  a  crutch  when  he 
broke  his  hip  at  eighty-two,  and  healed  miraculously 


348  OLD  CROW 

though  tradition  pronounced  him  done  for.  It  had  come 
to  the  house  among  a  load  of  outlawed  relics,  too  identi 
fied  with  the  meager  family  life  to  be  thrown  away,  and 
Tira  found  it  "up  attic"  and  brought  it  down  to  him. 
She  waited,  in  a  sympathetic  interest,  to  see  him  try  it, 
and  when  he  did  and  swung  across  the  kitchen  with  an 
angry  capability,  she  caught  her  breath,  in  a  new  fear 
of  him.  The  crutch  looked  less  a  prop  to  his  insufficiency 
than  like  a  weapon.  He  could  reach  her  with  it.  He 
could  reach  the  child.  And  then  she  began  to  see  how  his 
helplessness  had  built  up  in  her  a  false  security.  He  was 
on  the  way  to  strength  again,  and  the  security  was  gone. 

The  first  use  he  made  of  the  crutch  was  to  swing1  to 
the  door  and  tell  Jerry  he  need  not  come  again.  Tira 
was  glad  to  hear  him  add : 

"Much  obleeged.     I'll  do  the  same  for  you." 

Afterward  she  went  to  the  barn  with  him  and  fed  and 
watered  while  he  supplemented  her  and  winced  when  he 
hurt  himself,  making  strange  sounds  under  his  breath 
that  might  have  been  oaths  from  a  less  religious  man. 
And  Tira  was  the  more  patient  because  the  doctor  had 
told  her  the  foot  would  always  trouble  him. 

It  was  two  days  after  he  had  begun  to  use  his  crutches, 
that  Tira,  after  doing  the  noon  chores  in  the  barn  and 
house,  sat  by  the  front  window  in  her  afternoon  dress,  a 
tidy  housewife.  The  baby  was  having  his  nap  and  Tenney, 
at  the  other  window,  his  crutch  against  the  chair  beside 
him,  was  opening  the  weekly  paper  that  morning  come. 
Tira  looked  up  from  her  mending  to  glance  about  her 
sitting-room,  and,  for  an-  instant,  she  felt  to  the  full  the 
pride  of  a  clean  hearth,  a  shining  floor,  the  sun  lying  in 
pale  wintry  kindliness  across  the  yellow  paint  and  braided 
rugs.  If  she  had  led  a  gypsy  life,  it  was  not  because  her 
starved  heart  yearned  the  less  tumultuously  for  order  and 


OLD  CROW  34-9 

the  seemlincss  of  walls.  For  the  moment,  she  felt  safe. 
The  child  was  not  in  evidence,  innocently  calling  the  eye 
to  his  mysterious  golden  beauty.  Tenney  had  been  less 
irascible  all  the  forenoon  because  he  had  acquired  a  for 
tunate  control  over  his  foot,  and  (she  thought  it  shyly, 
yet  believingly)  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  with  them. 
Disregarded  or  not,  in  these  moments  of  wild  disordered 
living,  He  was  there. 

She  heard  sleigh-bells,  and  looked  out.  Tenney  glanced 
up  over  his  glasses,  an  unwonted  look,  curiously  like 
benevolence.  She  liked  that  look.  It  always  gave  her  a 
thrill  of  faith  that  sometime,  by  a  miracle,  it  might  linger 
for  more  than  the  one  instant  of  a  changed  visual  fo'cus. 
She  caught  it  now,  with  that  responsive  hope  of  its  con 
tinuance,  and  knew,  for  the  first  time,  what  it  recalled 
to  her:  the  old  minister  beyond  Mountain  Brook  looked 
over  his  glasses  in  precisely  that  way,  kindly,  gentle,  and 
forgiving.  But  mingled  with  the  remembrance,  came  the 
Hearing  of  the  bells  and  the  shock  to  her  heart  in  the  man 
they  heralded:  Eugene  Martin,  driving  fast,  and  staring 
at  the  house.  The  horse  was  moving  with  a  fine  jaunty 
action  when  Martin  pulled  him  up,  held  him  a  quieting 
minute,  and  got  out.  He  paused  an  instant,  his  hand 
on  the  robe,  as  if  uncertain  how  long  he  should  stay, 
seemed  to  decide  against  covering  the  horse  and  ran  up 
the  path.  He  must  have  seen  Tira  and  Tenney,  each  at 
a  window,  but  his  eyes  were  on  the  woman  only.  Half 
way  along  the  path,  he  took  off  his  hat  and  waved  it  at 
her  in  exaggerated  salute,  as  if  bidding  her  rejoice  that 
he  had  come.  In  the  same  instant  he  seemed,  for  the  first 
time,  to  see  Tenney.  His  eyes  rested  on  him  with  a  sur 
prise  excellently  feigned.  He  replaced  his  hat,  turned 
about  like  a  man  blankly  disconcerted  and  went  back  down 
the  path,  with  the  decisive  tread  of  one  who  cannot  take 


350  OLD  CROW 

himself  off  too  soon.  He  stepped  into  the  sleigh  and, 
drawing  the  robe  about  him,  drove  off,  the  horse  answering 
buoyantly.  Tira  sat,  the  stillest  thing  out  of  a  wood 
where  stalking  danger  lurks,  her  eyes  on  her  sewing.  Ten- 
ney  was  staring  at  her ;  she  knew  it,  and  could  not  raise 
her  lids.  Often  she  failed  to  meet  his  glance  because  she 
so  shrank,  not  from  his  conviction  of  her  guilt,  but  the 
fear  of  seeing  what  she  must  remember  in  blank  night 
watches,  to  shudder  over.  For  things  were  different  at 
night,  things  you  could  bear  quite  well  by  day.  Now  he 
spoke,  with  a  restrained  certainty  she  trembled  at.  He 
had-  drawn  his  conclusions;  nothing  she  could  possibly 
say  would  alter  them. 

"Comin'  in,  wa'n't  he?"  the  assured  voice  asked  her. 
"See  me,  didn't  he,  an'  give  it  up?" 

Tira  forced  herself  to  look  at  him,  and  the  anguished 
depths  of  her  eyes  were  moving  to  him  only  because  they 
seemed  to  mourn  over  his  having  found  her  out. 

"No,  Isr'el,"  she  said  quietly.  "He  wa'n't  comin'  in. 
He  drew  up  because  he  see  you,  an'  he  knew  'twould  be 
wormwood  to  both  of  us  to  have  him  do  just  what  he 
done." 

Tenney  laughed,  a  little  bitter  note.  Tira  could  not 
remember  ever  having  heard  him  laugh  with  an  unstinted 
mirth.  At  first,  when  he  came  courting  her,  he  was  too 
worn  with  the  years  of  work  that  had  brought  him  to 
her,  and  after  that  too  wild  with  the  misery  of  revolt.  She 
was  sorry  for  that,  with  an  increasing  sorrow.  Tira  could 
bear  no  unhappiness  but  her  own. 

"Wormwood !"  he  repeated,  as  if  the  word  struck  him 
curiously.  "D'he  think  'twas  goin'  to  be  wormwood  for 
a  woman  to  find  a  man  comin'  all  fixed  up  like  courtin' 
time,  to  steal  a  minute's  talk?  You  make  me  laugh." 

He  did  laugh,   and   the  laugh,  though  it  might  have 


OLD  CROW  351 

frightened  her,  made  her  the  more  sorry.  She  had  the 
sense  of  keeping  her  hand  on  him,  of  holding  him  back 
from  some  rushing  course  that  would  be  his  own  destruc 
tion. 

"Yes,"  she  answered  steadily.  "  'Twould  be  nothin' 
but  wormwood  for  me,  an'  well  he  knows  it.  He  don't — 
love  me,  Isr'el." 

She  hesitated  before  the  word,  and  with  it  the  thought 
of  Raven  came  to  her,  as  she  saw  him,  unvaryingly  kind 
and  standing  for  quiet,  steadfast  things.  "He  hates  me." 

"Hates  ye,"  he  repeated  curiously.  "What's  he  hate 
ye  for?" 

"Because,"  said  Tira,  bound  to  keep  quietly  oji  in  this 
new  way  of  reason  with  him,  "I  left  him.  An'  I  left  him 
'fore  he  got  tired  o'  me.  He  never'd  overlook  that." 

"You  left  him,  did  ye?"  he  repeated.  "Then  that 
proves  you  was  with  him,  or  ye  couldn't  ha'  left  him." 

"Why,  Isr'el,"  said  she,  her  clear  gaze  on  his  turbid 
answering  one,  "I  told  you.  I  told  you  long  'fore  you 
married  rne.  First  time  you  ever  mentioned  it,  I  told  you, 
so's  to  have  things  fair  an'  square.  I  told  you,  Isr'el." 

He  said  nothing,  but  she  knew  the  answer  at  the  back 
of  his  mind,  and  it  seemed  to  her  wise  now  to  provoke  it, 
to  dare  the  accusation  and  meet  it,  not  as  she  always  had, 
by  silence,  but  a  passionate  testimony. 

"You  said,"  she  continued,  "it  shouldn't  make  no  dif 
ference,  what  I'd  done  'fore  you  married  me.  You  said 
we  couldn't  help  the  past,  but  we  could  what's  comin'  to 
us.  An'  I  thought  you  was  an  angel,  Isr'el,  with  your 
religion  an'  all.  Not  many  men  would  ha'  said  that.  I 
didn't  know  one.  An'  we  were  married  an'  you — changed." 

"Yes,"  he  said.  His  hands  were  shaking  as  they  did 
at  the  beginning  of  his  rages,  but  Tira,  embarked  on  a 
course  she  had  long  been  corning  to,  was  the  more  calm. 


352  OLD  CROW 

"Yes,  I  changed,  didn't  I?  An'  when  d'  I  change?  When 
that" — he  paused  and  seemed  to  choke  down  the  word  he 
would  have  given  the  child — "when  that  creatur'  in  there 
turned  into  the  livin'  pictur'  of  the  man  that  drew  up 
here  this  day.  Can  you  deny  he's  the  image  of  him?" 

"No,"  said  Tira,  looking  at  him  squarely.  "He  is  the 
image  of  him." 

"What  do  folks  think  about  it?"  he  asked  her.  "What 
do  you  s'pose  the  neighbors  think  ?  What'll  it  be  when  it 
grows  worse  an'  worse?  What'll  the  school  children  say 
when  he's  old  enough  to  go  to  school?  They'll  see  it,  too, 
the  little  devils.  The  livin'  image,  they'll  say,  o'  'Gene 
Martin." 

Tira  laid  her  work  on  the  table  in  front  of  her.  The 
moment  of  restraining  him  had  failed  her,  but  another 
moment  had  come.  This  she  had  seen  approaching  for 
many  months  and  had  pushed  away  from  her. 

"Isr'el,"  she  said,  "I  guess  you  won't  have  that  to 
worry  over.  There's  no  danger  of  his  goin'  to  school. 
He— ain't  right." 

He  stared  at  her  a  long  moment,  puzzling  instances 
accumulating  in  his  mind,  evidences  that  the  child  was  not 
like  other  children  he  had  seen.  Then  he  began  to  laugh, 
a  laugh  full  of  wildness  and  despair. 

"O  my  Lord!"  he  cried.  "My  Lord  God!  if  I  wanted 
any  evidence  I  hadn't  got,  You've  give  it  to  me  now. 
You've  laid  Your  hand  on  her.  You've  laid  Your  hand  on 
both  of  'em.  He  can't  ride  by  here  an'  see  a  red-headed 
bastard  playin'  round  the  yard  an'  laugh  to  himself  when 
he  says,  'That's  mine.'  You've  laid  Your  hand  on  'em." 

Tira  rose  from  her  chair  and  went  to  him.  She  slipped 
to  the  floor,  put  her  head  on  his  unwelcoming  shoulder  and 
her  arms  about  his  neck. 

"Isr'el,"  said  she,  "you  hear  to  me.     If  you  can't  for 


OLD  CROW 

the  sake  o'  me,  you  hear  to  me  for  the  sake  o'  him, — 
sleepin'  there,  the  pitifullest  little  creatur'  God  ever  made. 
How's  he  goin'  to  meet  things,  as  he  is?  'Twould  be 
hard  enough  with  a  father  'n'  mother  that  set  by  him  as 
they  did  their  lives,  but  you  half-crazed  about  him — 
what'll  he  do,  Isr'el?  What'll  the  poor  little  creatur'  do?" 

Tenney  sat  rigid  under  her  touch,  and  she  went  on, 
pouring  out  the  mother  sorrow  that  was  the  more  over 
whelming  because  it  had  been  locked  in  her  so  long. 

"Isr'el,  I  could  tell  you  every  minute  o'  my  life  sence 
you  married  me.  If  'twas  wrote  down,  you  could  read  it, 
an'  'twould  be  Bible  truth.  An'  if  God  has  laid  His  hand 
on  that  poor  baby — Isr'el,  you  take  that  back.  It's  like 
cursin'  your  own  flesh  an'  blood." 

"I  do  curse  him,"  he  muttered.  "I  curse  him  for  that 
— not  bein'  my  flesh  an'  blood."  With  the  renewed  accu 
sation,  his  anger  against  her  seemed  to  mount  like  a  wave 
and  sweep  him  with  it,  and  he  shook  himself  free  of  her. 
"Jezebel !"  he  cried.  "Let  go  o'  me." 

Tira  rose  and  went  back  to  her  chair.  But  she  did  not 
sit  down.  She  stood  there,  looking  out  of  the  window  and 
wondering.  What  to  do  next?  With  a  man  beside  him 
self,  what  did  a  woman  do?  He  was  talking  now,  drum 
ming  his  fingers  on  the  arm  of  his  chair  and  looking  at 
her. 

"Sometimes,"  he  said,  "when  it  all  comes  over  me,  I 
think  I'll  shet  you  up.  I'll  leave  him  asleep  in  there  an' 
lock  you  in,  up  chamber,  an'  you  can  hear  him  cry  but 
you  can't  git  to  him.  An'  mebbe  you  can  work  it  out 
that  way.  He'll  be  the  scapegoat  goin'  into  the  wilder 
ness,  cryin'  in  there  alone,  an'  you'll  be  workin'  out  your 
punishment,  hearin'  him  cry." 

Tira  stood  listening  and  thinking.  This  was  a  new 
danger.  If  he  shut  her  away  from  the  child  (and  he  might 


354  OLD  CROW 

do  it  easily,  when  his  foot  would  serve  him  again)  nobody 
would  hear.  They  were  too  far  away.  He  was  frighten 
ing  her.  She  would  frighten  him.  She  walked  up  to  him 
and  stood  looking  down  on  him. 

"Isr'el,"  said  she  quietly,  "don't  you  git  it  into  your 
head  you  could  shet  me  up." 

"Yes,"  said  he,  and  his  tone  was  as  ominous  as  her  own, 
"I  guess  I  could  shet  you  up  all  right." 

"Yes,"  said  Tira,  "mebbe  you  could.  But  if  you  do,  I'll 
break  out.  An'  when  I've  broke  out" — she  towered  over 
him — "I'll  break  your  neck." 

Tenney,  looking  up  and  seeing  in  her  eyes  the  mother 
rage  that  sweeps  creation  from  man  to  brute,  was 
afraid,  and  Tira  knew  it.  She  looked  him  down.  Then 
her  gaze  broke,  not  as  if  she  could  not  have  held  his 
forever,  but  haughtily,  in  scorn  of  what  was  weaker  than 
herself. 

"I've  been  a  true  wife  to  you,  Isr'el,"  she  said.  "You 
remember  it  now,  'fore  it's  too  late.  For  as  God's  my 
witness,  if  you  turn  your  hand  ag'inst  a  little  child — 
whether  it's  your  own  or  whether  it  ain't — an'  that  baby 
in  there  is  yourn  an'  no  man  but  you  has  got  part  nor  lot 
in  him — if  you  turn  ag'inst  him,  I  turn  ag'inst  you.  An' 
when  I've  done  that,  you'll  find  me  as  crazy  as  you  be,  an' 
I  can't  say  no  worse." 

She  went  into  the  bedroom  and  he  heard  her  crooning 
there,  defiantly  he  thought,  even  through  the  low  sweet 
ness  of  her  voice.  But  her  passion  had  shaken  him  briefly. 
For  the  moment,  the  inner  self  in  him  could  not  help  be 
lieving  her.  He  went  back  to  his  newspaper,  trying, 
though  the  print  was  dim  before  him,  to  recover  his  hold 
on  the  commonplace  of  the  day.  He,  too,  would  be  un 
moved  ;  she  should  see  he  was  not  afraid  of  her  tantrums. 
But  he  had  not  read  half  a  column  before  an  evil  chance 


OLD  CROW  355 

drew  his  eyes  to  a  paragraph  in  the  gossip  from  the  vari 
ous  towns  about.  This  was  under  the  caption  of  his  own 
town : 

"A  certain  gentleman  appeared  last  week  with  a  black 
eye,  gained,  it  is  said,  in  a  scrap  with  a  non-resident  in 
terested  in-  keeping  the  peace  in  country  towns.  It  is 
said  both  combatants  bore  themselves  gallantly,  but  that 
suit  for  assault  and  battery  is  to  be  brought  by  the  party 
attacked." 

Tenney  sat  staring  at  the  words,  and  his  mind  told  him 
what  a  fool  he  was.  That  meant  the  encounter  at  his 
gate.  He  had  ignored  that.  He  had  been  deflected  from 
it  simply  because  he  had  cut  his  foot  and  let  himself  be 
drawn  off  the  track  of  plain  testimony  by  his  own  pain 
and  helplessness.  Was  Raven  in  it,  too?  Was  there  a 
shameless  assault  of  all  the  men  about  on  Tira's  honesty? 
While  he  was  the  dupe  of  Martin,  was  Martin  Raven's 
dupe?  Did  such  a  woman  bring  perpetual  ruin  in  her 
path?  This  he  did  not  ask  himself  in  such  words  or  in 
deed  through  any  connected  interrogation.  It  was  pas 
sion  within  him,  disordered,  dim,  but  horrible  to  bear.  He 
got  up  presently,  took  her  scissors,  cut  out  the  paragraph 
and  laid  it  on  her  basket  where  her  eyes  must  fall  upon 
it.  When  he  had  gone  back  to  his  chair,  she  appeared 
from  the  bedroom  and  went  up  to  him.  He  did  not  look 
at  her,  but  her  voice  was  sweeter,  gentler  than  the  song 
had  been,  with  no  defiance  in  it,  and,  in  spite  of  him,  it 
moved  his  sick  heart,  not  to  belief  in  her,  or  even  a  mo 
mentary  rest  on  her  good  intent  toward  him,  but  to  a 
misery  he  could  hardly  face.  Every  nerve  in  him  cried 
out  in  revolt  against  his  lot,  his  aching  love  for  her,  his 
passion  forever  unsatisfied  because  she  was  not  entirely 
his,  the  anguish  of  the  atom  tossed  about  in  the  welter  of 
elemental  life. 


356  OLD  CROW 

"Isr'el,"  said  she,  "there's  one  thing  we  forgot  when  we 
spoke  so  to  each  other  as  we  did  a  minute  ago." 

She  waited,  and  he  looked  up  at  her,  and  the  hunger  of 
his  eyes  was  as  moving  to  her  as  if,  like  the  child  they 
had  fought  over,  he  was  himself  a  child  and  "not  right." 

"We  forgot,"  she  said,  in  a  soft  shyness  at  having  to 
remind  him  who  was  a  professing  Christian  of  what  he 
knew  far  better  than  she,  "Who  was  with  us  all  the  time : 
the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

She  turned  away  from  him,  in  a  continued  timidity  at 
seeming  to  preach  to  him,  and  seated  herself  again  by  the 
other  window.  The  newspaper  clipping  arrested  her  eye. 
She  took  it  up,  read  it  over  slowly,  read  it  again  and 
Tenney  watched  her.  Then  she  crumpled  it  in  her  hand 
and  tossed  it  on  the  table.  She  glanced  across  at  Tenney 
and  spoke  gravely,  threading  her  needle  with  fingers  that 
did  not  tremble. 

"That's  jest  like  him,"  she  said.  "Anybody  't  knew 
him  'd  know  'twas  what  he'd  do.  He's  hand  in  glove  with 
Edson  that  carries  on  that  paper.  They  go  to  horse- 
trots  together.  He's  willin'  to  call  attention  to  himself, 
black  eye  an'  all,  if  he  can  call  attention  to  somebody  else, 
same  time.  That's  wormwood,  too,  Isr'el.  We're  the  ones 
it's  meant  for,  vou  an'  me.' 


XXXI 

In  a  day  or  two  Raven  had  convinced  himself  that  Dick, 
firm-lipped,  self-controlled,  as  if  he  had  set  himself  a  task, 
did  not  mean  to  leave  him.  Raven,  half  amused,  half 
touched,  accommodated  his  behavior  to  their  closer  rela 
tion  and  waited  for  Dick  to  disclose  himself.  He  would 
have  been  light-heartedly  glad  of  the  boy's  company  if  he 
had  found  no  strangeness  in  it,  no  purpose  he  could  not, 
from  point  to  point,  divine.  Dick  sent  for  more  clothes, 
:ind  a  case  came  by  post.  He  wrote  in  his  chamber,  for 
an  hour  or  two  every  morning,  and  after  that,  Raven 
became  conscious  that  the  boy  was  keeping  a  watchful  eye 
on  him.  If  Raven  went  up  to  the  hut,  Dick  was  sure  to 
appear  there,  in  ten  minutes  at  the  most.  Once,  after  a 
heavy  snow,  Raven  had  the  wood  road  broken  out,  and 
Dick  looked  on  in  a  darkling  conjecture.  And  when 
Raven,  now  even  to  Jerry's  wonder,  proceeded  to  break 
from  the  hut  to  the  back  road,  Dick  found  it  not  only 
impossible  to  restrain  himself  but  wise  to  speak.  They 
were  standing  by  the  hearth  in  the  hut,  after  Raven  had 
swept  it  and  laid  a  careful  fire.  He  had  worked  with  all 
possible  haste,  for  he  never  was  there  now  without  won 
dering  whether  she  might  come.  He  had  been  resting  in 
the  certainty  of  Tenney's  crippled  state,  but  the  wounded 
foot,  he  knew,  was  bettering  every  day,  and  with  it  Tira's 
security  lessened.  Jerry's  dismissal  from  the  chores  had 
troubled  him  so  much  that  he  had  gone  up,  immediately 
after,  to  reason  with  Tenney.  But  Tenney  was  entering 

357 


358  OLD  CROW 

the  barn  door  at  the  moment  of  his  turning  into  the  yard, 
and  Tira,  following,  stopped  an  instant  and  made  Raven 
a  little  gesture  that  seemed  to  him  one  of  hasty  dismissal, 
and  he  went  back  home  again. 

"Jack,"  said  Dick,  this  morning  in  the  hut — it  was  as  if 
he  had  to  speak — "what  are  you  getting  this  place  ready 
for,  and  breaking  out  the  back  road?  You  don't  need  to 
come  up  here,  in  weather  like  this.  If  you  do,  you've  got 
vour  snowshoes.  What  the  deuce  are  you  breaking  out 
for?" 

Raven  stood  a  moment  looking  down  at  Tira's  fire.  It 
seemed  a  sacred  pile,  consecrated  to  holy  use.  What 
would  Dick  say  if  he  told  him  the  paths  had  been  broken 
for  a  woman's  flying  feet,  the  fire  was  laid  to  warm  her 
when  she  came  here  hunted  by  man's  cruelty?  Dick  was 
said  to  have  written  some  very  strong  verse,  but  how  if  he 
found  himself  up  against  life  itself? 

"It's  a  jolly  old  place,"  Raven  said,  rousing  himself 
out  of  his  musing.  "As  for  breaking1  out,  that's  what 
oxen  are  for." 

Dick  was  looking  at  him  in  a  manifest  concern.  It  was 
true  affection.  The  boy  might  find  it  difficult  to  hail  him 
across  the  interval  of  years  between  them,  but  he  did  love 
old  Jack,  though  with  the  precise  measure  of  patronage 
due  the  old. 

"You  know,"  said  Dick,  "it  worries  me  like  the  deuce 
to  see  you  coming  up  here  like " 

He  paused  as  if  the  matter  were  too  complex  to  be  gone 
into  lightly. 

"Like  what?"  Raven  asked  him. 

"Well,  we've  been  over  that.  You  know  who  built  this. 
You  know  what  he  did  in  it.  He  brought  an  old  rip  up 
here  to  live  with  him,  and — oh,  confound  it,  Jack!  don't 
pretend  you  don't  even  remember  old  Crow." 


OLD  CROW  359 

"Yes,"  said  Raven  gravely,  "I  remember  Old  Crow." 

"Well,  anyhow,"  said  Dick,  "he  was  a  family  disgrace, 
and  the  less  said  about  him  the  better." 

"I  showed  you,  the  night  you  came,"  said  Raven,  "the 
story  of  Old  Crow's  life.  You  didn't  quite  catch  on. 
Want  another  try  at  it?" 

Dick  had  to  search  his  memory.  The  only  thing  he  had 
kept  in  mind  about  that  night  was  his  anger  against  Nan. 
There  was  a  book,  he  recalled  vaguely :  some  sort  of  stuff 
in  a  crabbed  hand. 

"Old  Crow?"  he  said.  "Old  Crow  never  wrote  any 
thing." 

"You  think,"  said  Raven,  "he  brought  his  bum  up  here 
and  they  sat  and  guzzled.  Well,  you're  wrong,  my  son. 
Come,  let's  go  down,  and  though  I  don't  know  whether 
it'll  mean  anything  to  you,  you  shall  have  another  hack 
at  Old  Crow." 

He  was  not  easy  until  he  had  turned  the  key  on  the 
safety  of  the  hut  and  started  down  the  hill.  When  they 
had  rounded  the  curve  made  by  the  three  jutting  firs,  he 
stopped. 

"Go  on,"  he  said.    "I'll  overtake  you." 

He  ran  back  and  slipped  the  key  under  the  stone.  It 
was  a  part  of  her  security  to  keep  the  secret  from  Dick 
also. 

No  more  was  said  of  Old  Crow  that  day,  but,  in  the 
early  evening,  when  they  were  before  the  fire,  Raven 
brought  down  the  book,  always  in  the  drawer  of  the  little 
table  by  his  bed.  It  was,  in  an  undefined  way,  kindliness 
and  company,  always  reminding  him  that,  whatever  his 
undesirable  status  now,  he  had  been  "the  boy,"  and  this 
was  his  own  personal  message  from  Old  Crow. 

"There  you  are,"  he  said.  He  laid  it  on  the  table. 
"Don't  read  it  unless  you'd  really  rather.  It's  meant  a 


360  OLD  CROW 

good  deal  to  me.  Maybe  it  won't  to  you.  I  don't  know 
much  about  the  processes  of  your  mind.  You  may  feel  at 
home  in  this  particular  world.  I  never  do.  Old  Crow 
didn't  cither.  But  you'll  see." 

Dick  began  to  read  and,  since  Nan  was  not  by  to  be 
loved  and  hated,  with  an  intent  mind.  Once  or  twice  he 
turned  back,  Raven  saw,  to  ponder  some  passage  again. 
It  was  slow  reading.  He  had  not  the  passionate  haste 
of  one  who  has  thirsted  for  some  such  community  of  as 
surance,  and  flies  over  the  ground,  plucking  a  leaf  here 
and  there,  meaning  to  return.  When  he  had  finished  he 
closed  the  book,  laid  it  on  the  table,  and  pushed  it  aside 
as  if  he  had  definitely  done  with  it. 

"Jackie,"  said  he,  "I'm  mighty  glad  you  showed  me 
this." 

"Good!"  said  Raven.     "Got  inside  it,  have  you?" 

"Why,  yes,"  said  Dick,  with  assurance.  "That's  easy 
enough.  It  isn't  new,  you  know.  And  it  isn't  so  much 
my  getting  inside  that  as  getting  inside  Old  Crow." 

"Oh!"  said  Raven  mildly,  "so  you  got  inside  Old  Crow. 
Now  what  did  you  find  there?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Dick,  "whether  you'd  better  be 
told.  From  a  psychopathic  point  of  view,  that  is.  But 
I  rather  guess  you  ought." 

"Dick,"  said  Raven,  "in  the  name  of  all  the  gods  you 
worship,  what  shouldn't  I  be  told?  And  exactly  how  do 
you  see  us  two  living  along  here,  mild  as  milk?  What's 
our  relation?  Sometimes,  when  I  find  you  plodding  after 
me,  I  feel  as  if  you  were  my  trainer.  Sometimes  I  have 
a  suspicion  I  really  am  off  my  nut  and  you're  my  keeper. 
Out  with  it,  boy?  How  do  you  see  it?  Come!" 

Dick,  from  a  patent  embarrassment,  was  staring  down 
at  the  hearth,  and  now  he  looked  quickly  up  in  a  frank 
ness  truly  engaging. 


OLD  CROW  361 

"Jack,"  he  said,  "you  needn't  think  you're  going  to  be 
left  here  alone,  to  work  things  out  by  yourself.  There's 
no  danger  of  mother.  I  told  her  to  keep  off.  She  only 
irritates  you.  But  she  hasn't  gone  back  home.  She's 
right  there  in  Boston,  waiting  to  come." 

Raven  got  up  and  walked  back  and  forth  through  the 
room.  Then  he  returned  to  his  chair. 

"Dick,"  he  said  conversationally,  "if  you  were  as  young 
in  years  as  you  are  in  your  mind,  I'd  mellow  you.". 

Dick  generously  ignored  this.  He  had  the  impeccable 
good  nature  of  the  sane  set  in  authority  over  the  sick. 

"What  I  think,  is,"  he  said,  with  a  soothing  intonation 
Raven  despairingly  recognized  as  the  note  of  strength 
pitting  itself  against  weakness,  "we  can  work  it  out  to 
gether,  you  and  I.  We  can  do  it  better  than  anybody 
else.  I  suppose  if  I  went  back  you'd  send  for  Nan.  But 
that  won't  do,  Jack.  You'll  see  it  for  yourself,  when 
you're  all  right  again.  Now  what  I  mean  about  Old  Crow 
is,  that  his  complexes  are  like  yours — or  rather  yours  are 
like  his.  Don't  you  see  what  an  influence  he's  had  on  you? 
More  than  Miss  Anne  even." 

"Hold  up,"  said  Raven.  "I'm  being  mighty  patient 
with  you,  but  certain  things,  you  know,  you  don't  say." 

"You  used  to  go  up  there  and  see  him,"  said  Dick, 
willingly  relinquishing  Miss  Anne.  There  were  times  when, 
as  he  remembered  from  boyhood,  old  Jack  was  dangerous. 
"Some  of  the  things  about  him  shocked  you.  Some  ap 
pealed  to  you.  Pity,  too:  you  must  have  pitied  him  tre 
mendously.  You  probably  knew  about  his  craze  over  this 
girl  he  mentions  here.  You  may  have  heard  things  about 
her,  just  as  he  did.  Jack,  I  can  see — the  whole  thing 
has  come  to  me  in  the  last  ten  minutes — Old  Crow  has  been 
the  big  influence  in  your  life.  Everything  else  has  come 
from  that.  And  then  the  war  knocked  you  out  and  you 


362  OLD  CROW 

got  cafard  and  the  whole  blasted  business  blew  up  and 
came  to  the  surface  and — there  you  are." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "here  we  are." 

He  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  laughed  until  he  could 
have  cried.  Never  had  he  found  anything  funnier  than 
the  boy's  honest  face  and  his  honest  voice  pouring  forth 
undigested  scraps  from  haphazard  gleanings. 

"Dick,"  he  said,  "you're  a  dear  fellow.  But  you're  an 
awful  ass.  The  trouble  is  with  you,  old  man,  you've  no 
imagination.  It  was  left  out.  You're  too  much  like  your 
mother  and  it'll  be  the  death  of  you  as  it  is  of  her  if  you 
don't  stop  being  intelligent.  That  sort  of  popular  science 
stuff,  you  know.  Be  a  little  sloppy,  boy.  Come  off  your 
high  horse." 

Dick  was  still  unassailably  good-natured.  Raven  was 
his  job,  and  he  could  hold  himself  down  with  a  steady 
hand. 

"Now,"  said  Raven,  "for  heaven's  sake  scrap  your  com 
plexes,  even  if  you  scrap  Old  Crow  with  'em,  and  let's  see 
if  we  can't  be  moderately  peaceable.  That  is,  if  we've 
got  to  be  marooned  here  together." 

And  by  dint  of  giving  his  mind  to  it,  he  was  himself 
peaceable  and  even  amusing,  but  as  the  dark  came  on  he 
found  he  had  much  ado  to  keep  up  the  game ;  he  was  too 
sensitively  awake  to  Tira.  With  no  new  reason  for  it,  he 
was  plainly  worried,  and,  leaving  Dick  reading  by  the  fire, 
went  up  to  his  own  room.  He  sat  down  by  a  front  win 
dow,  facing  the  dark  wall  of  the  hill,  but  when,  after  an 
other  hour,  he  heard  Dick  come  up  and  shut  himself  in,  he 
slipped  down  the  stairs,  took  his  cap  and  went  off  to  the 
hut.  The  sky  was  dark,  but  clear,  and  the  stars  burned 
in  galaxies  of  wonder.  But  the  beauty  of  the  night  only 
excited  and  oppressed  him  until  he  could  assure  himself  she 
was  not  out  in  it  on  one  of  her  dreadful  flights.  If  he 


OLD  CROW  363 

found  her  in  the  hut,  he  could  go  home  to  bed.  He 
reached  the  door,  stopped,  and  put  his  hand  under  the 
stone.  The  key  was  there,  and  he  laughed  out  in  his 
thankfulness.  The  laugh  was  at  his  fears,  and  he  won 
dered  whether  he  would  rather  think  of  her  there  in  her 
prison  or  here,  still  under  sentence,  due  at  her  prison 
again.  Then  he  heard  a  step :  a  man's  crashing  on  regard 
less  of  underbrush.  Was  it  Tenncy?  Should  he  hear  that 
voice  as  he  had  before  in  its  wild  "Hullo"  ? 

"Where  are  you?"  came  the  voice.  "Where  are  you,  old 
man?" 

Dick  had  followed  him  and  was,  in  his  affectionate  solic 
itude,  warning  him  against  surprise.  Raven  ran  down  to 
meet  him,  and  by  the  turn  of  the  fir  trees  they  faced  each 
other. 

"Dick,"  said  Raven,  "what  are  you  up  here  for?" 
"Can't  help  it,  old  man,"  said  Dick.  The  eagerness  of 
his  voice  made  it  very  moving.  "Really,  you  know,  I 
can't  have  you  trotting  round,  this  time  of  night,  all  by 
your  lonesome.  If  you  want  to  hang  round  here,  you  let 
me  come,  too.  We'll  light  the  fire  and  smoke  a  pipe  and 
finish  the  night,  if  you  say  so.  Come,  old  man.  Come 
on." 

"No,"  said  Raven  quietly,  "we  won't  light  fires  and 
smoke  pipes.  We'll  go  down  now,  to  bed.  Dick,  you're  a 
fool.  I've  had  to  tell  you  so  more  than  once.  But  you're 
a  dear  fool,  and  sometime  I  may  be  able  to  remember  that 
and  nothing  else.  Just  now  I  can't  seem  to  want  to  do 
anything  but  pitch  you,  neck  and  crop,  into  the  snow. 

They  went  down  together,  Dick  still  doggedly  conscious 
of  doing  the  only  thing  possible,  and  when  they  were  near 
the  foot  of  the  hill,  Raven  yelled  at  him,  the  old  Moose- 
wood  whoop,  and  sprang.  It  was  the  signal  between  them 
when  one  or  the  other  had  a  mind  to  "wrastle,"  and  they 


364  OLD  CROW 

stood  there  in  the  road  and  assailed  each  other  scien 
tifically  and  with  vigor,  to  the  great  benefit  of  each.  It 
was  a  beneficent  outburst,  and  Charlotte,  roused  by  the 
cry,  ran  to  a  chamber  window  and  stood  there  in  her 
nightgown,  watching. 

"How  they  do  carry  on !"  she  commented  to  Jerry, 
when  they  had  separated  and  come  in,  chaffing  volubly. 
"For  all  the  world  like  two  toms." 

Things  were  easier  between  them,  now  they  had  mauled 
each  other,  and  they  ran  upstairs  together,  "best  friends" 
as  they  used  to  be  when  Dick  learned  the  game.  He  was 
wonderfully  encouraged.  This  was  the  Uncle  Jack  he 
used  to  tag  about  the  place.  He  went  to  bed  with  a  hope 
ful  presentiment  that,  if  things  kept  on  like  this,  he  might 
take  Raven  back  to  town  presently,  reasonable  enough  to 
place  himself  voluntarily  in  the  right  hands. 

To  Tira,  the  week  dragged  on  with  a  malicious  implica 
tion  of  never  meaning  to  end  until  it  ended  her.  Strange 
things  could  be  done  in  a  week,  it  reminded  her,  conclu 
sive,  sinister  things.  The  old  fears  were  on  in  full  force, 
and  though  it  had  not  looked  as  if  they  could  be  much 
augmented,  now  they  piled  up  mountain  high.  And  she 
presently  found  out  they  were  not  the  old  fears  at  fill. 
There  was  a  fresh  menace,  ingeniously  new.  She  had 
studied  the  weather  of  Tenney's  mind  and  knew  the  signs 
of  it.  She  could  even  anticipate  them.  But  this  new 
menace  she  could  never  have  foreseen.  It  was  simply  his 
crutch.  An  evil  magic  seemed  to  have  fallen  upon  it,  and 
it  was  no  longer  a  crutch  but  a  weapon.  Tenney  would 
not  abandon  it.  His  foot  was  improving  fast,  and  the 
doctor  had  suggested  his  dropping  the  crutch  for  a  cane ; 
but  he  kept  on  with  it,  kept  on  obstinately  without  a 
spoken  pretext.  To  Tira,  there  was  something  sinister 
in  that.  She  saw  him  not  relying  on  it  to  any  extent,  but 


OLD  CROW  365 

sedulously  keeping  it  by  him.  Sometimes  he  gesticulated 
with  it.  He  had,  with  great  difficulty,  brought  in  the 
cradle  again,  as  if  to  emphasi/e  his  callousness  to  the  gasli 
in  it,  and  once  he  tapped  it  with  the  crutch,  while  the 
baby  lay  there  asleep,  and  set  it  rocking.  Tira,  cooking 
at  the  table,  felt  her  heart  stand  still.  An  actual  weapon 
she  could  flee  from,  but  was  this  a  weapon?  The  uncer 
tainty  was  in  itself  terrifying. 

It  was  the  day  he  set  the  cradle  rocking  that  she  awoke 
in  the  night,  her  fear  full  upon  her.  He  was  at  her  side, 
sleeping  heavily.  The  baby  was  on  her  other  arm.  Yet 
it  seemed  to  her  that  the  menace  from  Tenney  had  pierced 
her  to  reach  the  child  and,  on  its  passage,  stabbed  through 
her  racing  heart.  Then  her  temptation  came  upon  her, 
so  simple  a  thing  she  seemed  stupid  never  to  have  thought 
of  it  before.  She  rose  to  a  sitting  posture,  put  her  feet 
out  of  bed,  took  the  child,  and  carried  him  with  her  into 
the  sitting-room.  She  laid  him  on  the  couch  and  covered 
him,  and  then  stole  back  into  the  bedroom.  The  crutch 
was  there,  in  its  habitual  place  at  night,  leaning  against 
the  foot  of  the  bed.  She  could  put  her  hand  on  it  in  the 
dark.  Tenney,  too,  she  had  begun  to  reflect,  could  put 
his  hand  on  it.  What  deeds  might  he  not  do  with  it  in 
those  hours  when  the  sanities  of  life  also  sleep?  She  took 
it  gently  and  went  out  again  through  the  sitting-room  and 
kitchen  into  the  shed.  Her  purpose  had  been  to  hide  it 
behind  the  wood.  But  if  he  came  on  it  there,  it  would  not 
be  a  crutch  he  found.  It  would  be  a  weapon.  She  put 
her  hand  on  an  upright  beam,  as  she  stood  painfully  think 
ing  it  out,  and  touched  the  handle  of  a  saw,  hanging  there 
on  a  nail ;  immediately  she  knew.  She  went  back  into  the 
kitchen,  lighted  the  lantern  and  carried  it  into  the  shed. 
There  stood  the  crutch  leaning  against  the  beam  below 
the  saw,  a  weapon  beyond  doubt.  She  set  down  her  Ian- 


366  OLD  CROW 

tern,  laid  the  crutch  on  the  block  Tenney  used  to  split 
kindlings,  set  her  foot  upon  it  and  methodically  sawed  it 
into  stove  wood  lengths.  When  it  was  done  she  gathered 
up  the  pieces,  carried  them  into  the  sitting-room,  to  the 
stove  where  Tenney  always,  in  winter  weather,  left  a  log 
to  smoulder,  dropped  them  in  and  opened  the  draught. 
Then  she  went  back  to  the  shed,  swept  up  her  scattering 
of  sawdust,  hung  the  saw  in  its  place,  gave  a  glance  about 
her  to  see  that  everything  was  in  its  usual  order,  and 
returned  into  the  kitchen.  She  put  out  the  lantern,  hung 
it  on  its  nail,  went  into  the  sitting-room  and  partially 
shut  the  draft  on  the  noisy  blaze.  She  did  not  dare  quite 
shut  it,  lest  a  bit  of  the  weapon  should  be  left  to  cry  out 
from  the  ashes  and  tell.  When  she  was  back  in  bed  again, 
the  child  on  her  arm,  Tenney,  disturbed  by  her  coming, 
woke  and  turned.  He  lifted  his  head  from  the  pillow,  to 
listen,  and  she  wondered  if  he  could  hear  the  beating 
of  her  heart. 

"You  there?"  he  asked.  "What's  that  stove  started 
out  roarin'  for?  The  chimbly  ain't  afire?" 

"No,"  said  Tira.  "Mebbc  somethin's  ketched."  She 
got  out  of  bed,  ran  into  the  sitting-room,  noiselessly  shut 
the  crack  of  draught,  and  came  back.  "Them  knots  are 
kinder  gummy,"  she  said  calmly,  and  was  heartened  by 
the  evenness  of  her  voice.  "I  guess  'twon't  roar  long." 

They  listened  together  until  the  sound  diminished,  and 
Tira  knew  when  he  relaxed  and  dropped  off  again.  It 
did  not  seem  to  her  that  she  dropped  off  at  all,  she  was 
so  relieved  to  think  of  her  enemy  smouldering  and  done 
for. 

This  was  the  night  Raven  had  had  his  premonition  of 
her  and  gone  up  to  the  hut  to  find  her,  and  the  next  night 
he  was  aware  of  her  again,  as  if  she  had  put  a  hand  out 
through  the  darkness  and  given  him  an  imploring  touch. 


OLD  CROW  367 

He  and  Dick  had  had  an  almost  jovial  day.  Their  wrest 
ling  bout  had  proved  sound  medicine.  It  had,  Raven 
thought,  cleared  the  air  of  the  fool  things  they  had  been 
thinking  about  each  other.  This  evening  they  had  talked, 
straight  talk,  as  between  men,  chiefly  of  Dick's  future  and 
his  fitness  for  literature.  There  was  no  hint  of  Nan, 
though  each  believed  she  was  the  pivot  on  which  Dick's 
fortunes  turned.  About  ten  they  went  up  to  bed,  and 
again  Raven  found  himself  too  uneasy  to  sleep,  and  again 
he  sat  down  by  the  window  in  the  dark.  Incredibly,  yet 
as  he  found  he  knew  it  would  happen,  he  saw  a  figure 
running  up  the  path.  It  came  almost  to  the  front  door, 
halted  a  moment,  as  if  in  doubt,  stooped  and  threw  up  a 
clutch  of  snow  against  a  window.  The  snow  was  full  of 
icy  pellets ;  they  rattled  against  the  pane.  But  it  was  not 
his  window,  which  was  dark;  the  hand  had  cast  its  sig 
naling  pellets  to  the  room  where  a  light  was  burning  and 
where  the  outline  of  a  man's  figure  had  just  been  visible. 
And  the  man  was  Dick.  But  Raven  knew.  He  opened 
his  door  and  shut  it  as  softly,  stole  down  the  stairs, 
opened  the  outer  door,  and  drew  her  in.  Then,  in  the  in 
stant  of  snapping  on  the  light,  he  saw  Tira  recoil ;  for 
there,  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  was  Dick.  She  would 
have  slipped  out  again,  but  Raven's  hand  was  on  her. 
He  still  held  hers,  as  he  had  taken  it,  and  now  he  turned 
her  to  the  library  door.  It  was  all  done  quickly,  and 
meantime  he  said  to  Dick,  "Go  back  to  bed,"  and  Dick 
perhaps  not  responding  exactly,  commented  under  his 
breath,  "Good  God!"  Raven  followed  Tira  into  the 
library,  turned  the  key  in  the  lock,  switched  on  the  light 
in  his  reading  lamp,  and  drew  a  chair  to  the  smouldering 
fire. 

"Sit  down,"  he  said.     "You  must  get  warm." 

He  threw  on  cones  and  roused  a  leaping  blaze.    Then 


368  OLD  CROW 

he  made  himself  look  at  her.  He  forgot  Dick  and  Dick's 
shocked  bewilderment.  He  was  calm  as  men  are  calm  in 
an  accomplished  certainty.  She  had  come.  She  did  not 
seem  cold  or  in  any  sense  excited,  though  she  put  her 
hands  to  the  blaze  and  bent  toward  it  absently,  as  if  in 
courtesy  because  he  had  given  it  to  her.  As  she  sat,  draw 
ing  long  breaths  that  meant  the  ebbing  of  emotion,  he  let 
his  eyes  feed  on  her  face.  She  was  paler  than  he  had 
seen  her.  There  were  shadows  under  her  eyes,  and  the 
lashes  on  her  cheek  looked  incredibly  long:  a  curved  inky 
splash.  Her  hood  had  fallen  back,  but  she  kept  the  blue 
cloak  about  her  to  her  chin,  as  if  it  made  a  seclusion,  a 
protection  even  against  him.  But  it  was  only  an  instant 
before  she  withdrew  her  hands  from  the  blaze  and  turned 
to  him,  with  a  little  smile.  She  began  to  speak  at  once,  as 
if  she  had  scant  time,  either  for  indulging  her  own  weak 
ness  or  troubling  him. 

"You'll  think  it's  queer,"  she  said.  "I've  come  here 
routin'  you  out  o'  bed  when  you've  give  me  that  nice 
place  up  there  to  run  away  to." 

Raven  found  himself  ready  to  break  out  into  assevera 
tions  that  it  was  the  only  natural  thing  for  her  to  do. 
Where  should  she  go,  if  not  to  him? 

"No,"  he  said,  the  more  gravely  because  he  was  coun 
seling  himself  while  he  answered  her.  "You  did  right. 
But,"  he  added,  "wherc's ?" 

She  understood.  Where  was  the  baby  who  always  made 
the  reason  for  her  flight  ? 

"He's  up  there,"  she  answered,  with  a  motion  of  her 
hand  toward  the  road. 

"In  the  hut?"  he  exclaimed.     "You  left  him  there?" 

It  seemed  impossible. 

"Yes,"  she  said  quietly,  "all  soul  alone.  I  run  out  with 
him,  same  as  I  always  have.  I  run  up  there.  I  found  the 


OLD  CROW  369 

road  all  broke  out.  I  waVt  surprised.  I  knew  you'd  do 
it.  That  is,  I'd  ha'  known  it  if  I'd  thought  anything 
about  it.  An'  I  found  the  key  an'  started  the  fire.  An' 
then  I  knew  I'd  got  to  see  you  this  night,  an'  I  put  him 
on  the  lounge  an'  set  chairs  so's  he  wouldn't  fall  out,  an' 
packed  him  round  with  pillers,  an'  locked  him  in  an'  left 
him." 

She  paused  and  Raven  nodded  at  her  as  if  he  wanted  to 
find  it  as  simple  as  it  seemed  to  her. 

"You  see,  I  couldn't  bring  him  down  here,"  she  said. 
"He  might  cry.  An'  there's  Charlotte.  An'  Jerry.  An' 
the  young  man.  I'm  sorry  the  young  man  see  me.  That's 
too  bad." 

"It's  all  right,"  said  Raven  briefly,  though  he  was 
aware  it  was,  from  Dick's  present  point  of  view,  all 
wrong.  "I'll  attend  to  that." 

"He's  safe  enough,"  said  Tira,  her  eyes  darkening  as 
she  recurred  to  the  baby.  "If  he  cries,  'twon't  do  no  hurt 
up  there.  Well!"  She  seemed  to  remind  herself  that 
there  was  much  to  say.  "I  must  be  gittin'  along  with  my 
story."  She  looked  at  him  in  a  most  moving  wistfulness, 
and  added:  "I  got  scared." 


XXXII 

Raven  gave  his  answering  nod.  That  seemed  to  be 
about  all  he  could  respond  with,  in  his  danger  of  saying 
the  rash  thing. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "scared.     Same  way?" 

"No,"  she  said.  "Worse.  I  guess  I  never've  been  so 
scared.  An'  I've  got  myself  to  thank.  You  see,  last 
night- 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.     "I  got  wind  of  it  last  night." 

This,  though  it  puzzled  her,  she  could  not  stay  to  fol 
low  out,  with  the  baby  up  in  the  hut  defended  only  by 
pillows  and  Tenney  perhaps  turning  to  ask:  "You  there?" 

"You  see,"  she  said,  "it's  his  crutch." 

"You  mean,"  supplied  Raven,  brute  anger  rising  up  in 
him  against  brute  man,  "he's  struck  you  with  it?" 

"No,  no,"  she  hastened  to  assure  him.  "He  ain't  even 
threatened  me.  Only  somehow  it  was  like  his  havin'  some- 
thin'  always  by  him,  somethin'  he  could  strike  with,  an' — I 
dunno  what  come  over  me — I  burnt  it  up." 

At  once  Raven  faced  the  picture  of  it,  the  mad  im 
pulse,  the  resulting  danger.  But  he  would  not  add  his 
apprehensiveness  to  hers. 

"I  dunno,"  she  said,  "as  you'll  hardly  see  what  I  mean : 
but  it  begun  to  look  kinder  queer  to  me,  that  crutch  did. 
All  I  could  think  of  was  how  much  better  'twould  be  for 
everybody  concerned  if  'twas  burnt  up." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.  "I  see.  We  all  feel  so  sometimes, 
when  we're  tired  out."  The  moderation  of  these  words 

370 


OLD  CROW  371 

but  ill  expressed  his  tumultuous  mind.  That  was  it,  his 
passionate  understanding  told  him.  The  natural  world 
throws  its  distorted  shadows,  and  our  eyes  have  to  be  at 
their  strongest  not  to  recoil  in  panic,  while  we  turn  back 
to  strike.  "And,"  he  said,  because  she  seemed  to  be  mired 
here  in  the  bog  of  her  own  wonderment,  "in  the  morning 
of  course  he  found  it  out." 

The  strangest  look  came  into  her  face:  she  was  horri 
fied,  and  more  than  that,  indubitably  more,  she  was  per 
plexed. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "he  found  it  out.  'Course  he  found  it 
out  first  thing,  'fore  he  dressed  him  even.  I  got  up  early 
an'  made  the  fires.  I've  been  makin'  'em  sence  he's  laid 
up.  So  I  don't  know  no  more'n  the  dead  how  he  looked 
when  it  first  come  over  him  the  crutch  wa'n't  there.  But 
he  come  out  int'  the  kitchen — I'd  been  t'  the  barn  then 
an'  give  the  cows  some  fodder — an'  he  carried  a  cane,  his 
gran'ther's  it  was,  same's  the  crutch.  It's  got  a  crook 
handle,  an'  I've  kep'  it  in  the  chimney  corner  to  pull  down 
boxes  an'  things  from  the  upper  cupboard.  An'  he  went 
out  to  the  barn  an'  come  in  an'  eat  his  breakfast,  an'  eat 
his  dinner  an'  his  supper,  when  they  come  round,  an'  we 
done  the  barn  work  together,  an'  he  ain't  mentioned  the 
crutch  from  first  to  last." 

"Well,"  said  Raven,  in  a  futile  reassurance,  "perhaps 
he  thinks  he's  left  it  somewhere,  and  if  he  doesn't  particu 
larly  need  it — Jerry  told  me  only  this  morning  the  doc 
tor  said  he  might  as  well  be  getting  used  to  a  cane." 

"No,"  said  Tira  conclusively,  "he  don't  think  he's  left 
it  anywheres.  He's  keepin'  still,  that's  all." 

Immediately  Raven  saw  the  menacing  significance  of 
Tenney's  keeping  still.  His  mind  ran  with  a  quick  foot 
over  the  imprisonment  of  the  two  there  together.  Was 
there  a  moment,  he  wondered,  when  the  suffering  brute 


OLD  CROW 

was  not  threatening  to  her,  when  her  heart  could  rest 
itself  for  the  next  hurried  flight?  He  ventured  his  ques 
tion. 

"Has  he  been" — he  hesitated  for  a  word  and  found 
what  sounded  to  him  a  mawkish  one — "good  to  you  at  all, 
these  last  weeks?" 

Tira  reflected  a  moment  and  then,  for  the  first  time 
since  she  came  in  from  the  cold,  the  blood  rushed  to  her 
haggard  cheeks.  She  remembered  a  moment,  the  day  be 
fore  the  burning  of  the  crutch,  when  lie  had  found  her 
doing  her  hair  before  the  bedroom  glass  and  had  caught 
her  to  him  wildly.  She  had  put  him  away  from  her,  though 
gently,  because  his  violence,  whether  it  took  the  form  of 
starved  passion  or  raging  hate,  always  seemed  to  her  the 
unbecoming  riot  of  a  forward  child,  and  he  had  left  her 
in  a  shamefaced  anger,  a  grumbling  attempt  to  recover 
his  lost  dignity.  Tira  hid  even  from  herself  the  miserable 
secrets  of  marital  savagery.  No  sacrifice  was  too  great 
to  hide  from  Tenney  her  knowledge  of  his  abasement. 
Most  of  all  must  she  hide  it  from  another  man,  and  that 
man  Raven.  Her  answer  was  not  ready,  but  she  had  it 
for  him,  and  he  understood,  in  his  unfailing  knowledge  of 
her,  that  it  was  the  first  crooked  one  she  had  ever  given 
him,  and  for  the  first  time  he  felt  anger  toward  her.  She 
was  defending  her  enemy,  and  against  him. 

"He  does  the  best  he  can,"  she  said.  "He  takes  things 
terrible  hard.  I  dunno's  I  ever  see  anybody  that  took 
'em  so  hard." 

Then,  as  he  did  not  speak,  she  looked  at  him  and  meet 
ing  the  cold  unresponsivcness  in  his  face  her  composure 
broke  and  she  stretched  out  her  hands  to  him  in  a  wild- 
ness  of  entreaty. 

"Oh,  don't  you  look  like  that,"  she  cried.  "If  3^ou  turn 
from  me  'twill  be  my  death." 


OLD  CROW  373 

He  was  not  cold  now  He  bent  to  her  and  took  her 
hands  in  his 

"Tira,''  he  said,  '"come  away  with  me  You  can't  bear 
this  any  longer.  Take  the  child  and  come.  You'd  be  safe. 
You'd  be  happy,  if  you  weren't  afraid.  Don't  go  back 
there  for  another  minute.  Stay  here  over  night,  and  to 
morrow  I'll  take  you  away." 

He  was  looking  at  her,  his  eyes  holding  hers  as  his 
hands  held  her  hands.  And,  whatever  he  had  meant,  the 
strangest,  swiftest  retribution  of  his  life  came  to  him 
through  the  change  in  her  face.  How  could  flesh  and 
muscle  bring  about  such  an  alteration  in  human  line  and 
texture,  the  Mother  of  Sorrows  transformed  to  a  Medusa 
head?  Her  lips  parted,  trembling  over  words  they  could 
not  bring  themselves  to  say.  Her  eyes  widened  into  dark 
ness.  Her  brows  drew  together  in  a  pitiful  questioning. 
And  her  voice,  when  she  did  speak,  was  a  vibrating  pro 
test  against  what  her  eyes  knew  and  her  mind. 

"You  don't  mean,"  she  said,  "that?" 

Raven  dropped  her  hands  as  if  they  had  struck  him. 
The  question  was  a  rushing  commentary  on  his  life  and 
hers.  Was  he,  she  meant,  only  another  actor  in  this 
drama  of  man's  hunger  and  savagery  ?  Was  he  a  trader  in 
the  desire  of  beauty,  that  tragic  dower  nature  had  thrown 
over  her  like  a  veil,  so  that  whoever  saw  it  with  a  covetous 
eye,  longed  to  possess  and  and  rend  it?  Probably  Tira 
never  did  what  would  be  called  thinking.  But  her  heart 
had  a  vital  life  of  its  own,  her  instinct  was  the  genius  of 
intuition.  He  had  been  kind  to  her,  compassionate.  She 
had  built  up  a  temple  out  of  her  trust  in  him,  and  now 
he  had  smoked  the  altar  with  the  incense  that  was  rank 
in  her  nostrils.  He  had  brought,  not  flowers  and  fruits, 
but  the  sacrifice  of  blood.  And  he,  on  his  part,  what  did 
he  think?  Only  that  he  must  save  her. 


874  OLD  CROW 

^No,  Tira,"  he  said,  "I  don't  mean  that.  I  mean — 
what  you  want  me  to  mean.  You  can't  understand 
what  it  is  to  a  man  to  know  you're  afraid,  to  know  you're 
in  danger  and  he  can't  help  you.  I  didn't  ask  you  as  I 
ought.  I  asked  you  to  come  away  with  me.  I  ask  you 
again.  Come  away  with  me  and  I'll  take  you  to  the  best 
place  I  know.  I'll  take  you  to  Nan." 

He  had  not  guessed  he  was  going  to  say  this.  Only, 
as  he  spoke,  he  knew  in  his  inner  mind  the  best  place  was 
Nan.  Suddenly  she  seemed  to  be  in  the  room  with  them. 
What  was  it  but  her  cool  fragrant  presence?  And  she 
understood.  Tira  might  not.  She  might  feel  these  turbid 
wraves  of  his  response  to  he  knew  not  what :  the  beauty  and 
mystery  of  the  world,  the  urge  of  tyrant  life,  all  bound 
up  in  the  presence  of  this  one  woman.  She  was  woman, 
hunted  and  oppressed.  He  was  man,  created,  according 
to  the  mandate  of  his  will,  to  save  or  to  undo  her.  But 
the  world  and  the  demands  of  it,  clean  or  unclean,  could 
not  be  taken  at  a  gulp.  He  must  get  hold  of  himself  and 
put  his  hand  on  Tira's  will.  For  she  could  only  be  saved 
against  her  own  desire.  Whatever  he  had  seemed  to  ask 
her,  or  whatever  his  naked  mind  and  rebellious  lips  had 
really  asked,  he  could  not  beg  her  to  forgive  him.  He 
must  not  own  to  a  fault  in  their  relation,  lest  he  seem,  as 
he  had  at  that  moment,  an  enemy  the  more. 

"That's  exactly  what  you  must  do,"  he  said.  "You 
must  let  me  take  you  to  Nan." 

A  soft  revulsion  seemed  to  melt  her  to  an  acquiescence 
infinitely  grateful  to  her. 

"That,"  she  said,  "was  what  I  had  in  mind.  If  she'd 
take  him — the  baby — an'  put  him  somewhere.  She  said 
there  were  places.  She  said  so  herself.  I  dunno's  you 
knew  it,  but  she  talked  to  me  about  him.  She  said  there 
was  ways  folks  know  now  about  doin'  things  for  'em 


OLD  CROW  375 

when  they  ain't  right,  an'  makin'  the  most  you  can  of 
'em.  She  told  me  if  I  said  the  word,  she'd  come  here  an' 
carry  him  back  with  her." 

"But,"  said  Raven,  "what  about  you?  I'm  ready  to 
stand  by  the  child,  just  as  Nan  is.  But  I'm  doing  it  for 
your  sake.  What  about  you?" 

"Oh,"  said  Tira,  with  a  movement  of  her  eloquent 
hands,  as  if  she  tossed  away  something  that  hindered  her, 
"tain't  no  matter  about  me.  I've  got  to  stay  here.  Mr. 
Raven" — her  voice  appealed  to  him  sweetly.  He  re 
membered  she  had  not  so  used  his  name  before — "I  told 
you  that.  I  can't  leave  him." 

The  last  word  she  accented  slightly,  and  Raven  could 
not  tell  whether  the  stress  on  it  was  the  tenderness  of 
affection,  or  something  as  moving,  yet  austere.  And  now 
he  had  to  know. 

"You  want  to  stay  with  him"-  -  he  began,  and  Tira 
interrupted  him  softly,  looking  at  him  meantime,  as  if 
she  besought  him  to  understand: 

"I  promised  to." 

Raven  sat  there  and  looked  into  the  fire,  thinking  des 
perately.  At  that  moment,  he  wanted  nothing  in  the 
world  so  much  as  to  snatch  her  away  from  Tenney  and 
set  her  feet  in  a  safe  place.  But  did  he  want  it  solely  for 
her  or  partly  for  himself?  What  did  it  matter?  Casuis 
try  was  far  outside  the  tumult  of  desire.  He  would  kick 
over  anything,  law  or  gospel,  to  keep  her  from  going 
back  there  this  night.  Yet  he  spoke  quietly : 

"We'll  go  up  and  get  the  baby,  and  I'll  call  Charlotte, 
and  you'll  stay  here  to-night.  To-morrow  we'll  go." 

"No,"  said  Tira,  gentty  but  immovably,  "I  couldn't 
have  Charlotte  an'  Jerry  brought  into  it.  Not  anyways 
in  the  world." 

"Why  not?"  asked  Raven. 


376  OLD  CROW 

"I  couldn't,"  she  said.  "They're  neighbors.  They're 
terrible  nice  folks,  but  folks  have  to  talk — they  can't  help 
it — an',  'fore  you  knew  it,  it'd  be  all  over  the  neighbor 
hood.  An'  he's  a  professin'  Christian.  'Twould  be  ter 
rible  for  him." 

Sometimes  he  only  knew  from  the  tone  of  her  voice,  in 
this  general  vagueness  of  expecting  him  to  understand 
her,  whether  she  meant  Tenney  or  the  child. 

"What  I  thought  was,"  she  went  on  timidly,  "if  she'd 
come  an'  git  him" — and  here  "him"  evidently  meant  the 
child — "  'twould  be  reasonable  she  was  takin'  him  back 
where  he  could  be  brought  up  right.  She'd  just  as 
soon  do  it,"  she  assured  him  earnestly,  as  if  he  had  no 
part  in  Nan.  "Some  folks  are  like  that.  They're  so 
good." 

He  was  insatiate  in  his  desire  to  understand  her. 

"And  you  mean,"  he  said,  with  a  directness  he  was  will 
ing  to  tincture  with  a  cruelty  sharp  enough  to  serve,  "to 
send  the  child  off  somewhere  where  he  will  be  safe,  and 
then  live  here  with  this  brute,  have  more  children  by 
him " 

"No !  no !"  she  cried  sharply.  "Not  that !  don't  you 
say  that  to  me.  I  can't  bear  it.  Not  from  you!  My 
God  help  me !  not  from  you." 

He  understood  her.  She  loved  him.  He  was  set  apart 
by  her  overwhelming  belief  in  him,  but  she  was  in  all  ways, 
the  ways  of  the  flesh  as  well  as  the  spirit,  consecrated  to 
him.  Her  body  might  become  the  prey  of  man's  natural 
cruelty,  and  yet,  while  she  wept  her  tears  of  blood  in  this 
unreasoning  slavery,  she  held  one  worship.  There  he 
would  be  alone.  The  insight  of  the  awakened  mind  told 
him  another  thing:  that,  in  spite  of  her  despairing  loy 
alty,  he  could  conquer  her  scruples.  He  could,  by  the 
sheer  weight  of  a  loving  will,  force  her  to  follow  him.  A 


OLD  CROW  377 

warm  entreaty,  one  word  of  his  own  need,  and  she  would 
answer.  And  while  he  thought,  the  jungle  feeling  came 
upon  him,  hot,  hateful  to  his  conscious  mind,  the  feeling 
of  the  complexity  of  it  all,  strange  beasts  of  emotion  out 
for  prey,  the  reason  drugged  with  nature's  sophistries. 
The  jungle!  That  was  what  Nan  had  called  it,  this  wel 
ter  of  human  misery.  Who  else  had  been  talking  to  him 
about  it?  Why,  Old  Crow!  He  had  not  called  it  the 
jungle,  but  he  had  been  lost  in  its  tortuous  ways.  This 
prescience  to  Old  Crow  brought  a  queer  feeling,  as  if  a  coo) 
air  blew  on  him.  The  jungle  feeling  passed.  Almost  he  had 
the  vision  of  an  eternal  city,  built  up  by  the  broken  but 
never  wholly  failing  strength  of  man,  and  Old  Crow  there 
beckoning  him  into  it  and  telling  him  he'd  kept  a  place  for 
him.  And  the  cool  breeze  which  was  Old  Crow  told  him  that 
although  Tira  must  be  rescued,  if  it  could  be  brought 
about,  it  must  not  be  through  any  of  the  jungle  ways. 
She  must  not  be  drugged  by  jungle  odors  and  carried  off 
unwillingly,  even  to  the  Holy  City  itself,  by  that  road. 
He  and  Tira — yes,  he  and  Tira  and  Nan — would  march 
along  together  with  their  eyes  open.  He  hastened  to 
speak,  to  commit  himself  to  what  he  must  deliberately 
wish : 

"Then  we'll  telephone  Nan." 

She  looked  at  him,  all  gratitude.  Her  friend  had  gone 
away  into  strange  dark  corners  of  life  where  only  her  in 
stinct  followed  him,  and  here  he  was  back  again. 

"No,"  she  said,  "don't  you  telephone.  Somebody'd 
listen  in.  You  write.  I  guess  mebbe  nothin'll  happen 
right  off,  even  if  I  did  burn  the  crutch.  I  guess  I  got 
kinder  beside  myself  to-night.  I  ain't  likely  to  be  so 
ag'in." 

"I'll  walk  up  to  the  hut  with  you,"  said  Raven,  rising 
as  she  did,  "and  see  you  safe  inside." 


378  OLD  CROW 

"No,"  said  she,  "I  couldn't  let  you  no  ways.  It's  bad 
enough  as  'tis." 

By  this  she  meant  the  paragraph  in  the  paper  which 
had  laid  an  insulting  finger  on  him ;  but  he  had  not  seen  it 
and  did  not  understand.  Only  it  was  plain  to  him  that 
she  would  not  let  him  go.  She  drew  her  hood  up,  and 
made  it  secure  under  her  chin.  Then  she  looked  at  him 
and  smiled  a  little.  She  had  to  smile,  her  woman's  instinct 
told  her,  to  reassure  him.  She  opened  the  door,  and 
though  he  followed  her  quickly,  had  slipped  through  the 
outer  door  as  softly  and  was  gone.  He  stood  there  on  the 
sill  watching  her  hurrying  to  the  road.  When  she  had 
turned  to  the  right,  she  began  to  run,  and  he  went  down 
the  path  after  her  to  look  up  the  road,  lest  she  had  seen 
something  pursuing  her.  But  the  night  was  still.  There 
was  no  sound  of  footsteps  on  the  snow,  and  the  far-off 
barking  of  a  fox  made  the  silence  more  complete.  She 
was  only  hurrying,  because  her  mother  heart  had  wakened 
suddenly  to  the  loneliness  of  the  child  up  there  among 
the  pillows,  torturing  herself  with  wonders  that  she  could 
leave  him.  He  went  out  into  the  road  and  continued  on 
her  track,  until  he  saw  her  turn  into  the  woods.  Then, 
waiting  until  she  should  be  far  enough  in  advance  not  to 
catch  the  sound  of  his  pursuit,  he  suddenly  heard  foot 
steps  on  the  road  and  turned.  A  man  was  coming  rap 
idly.  It  was  Dick. 


XXXIII 

In  his  relief — for,  in  spite  of  the  man's  lameness,  he  had 
made  sure  it  was  Tenney — Raven  laughed  out.  At  once 
he  sobered,  for  why  was  Dick  here  but  to  spy  on  him? 

"Well,"  he  inquired  brusquely,  "what  is  it?" 

They  turned  together,  and  Dick  did  not  speak.  When 
they  had  gone  in  and  Raven  closed  the  hall  door  and 
glanced  at  him,  he  was  suddenly  aware  that  the  boy  had 
not  spoken  because  he  could  not  trust  himself.  His  brows 
were  knit,  his  face  dark  with  reproachful  anger. 

"Think  the  old  man  shouldn't  have  gone  out  in  the  cold 
without  his  hat  and  muffler?"  asked  Raven  satirically. 

"Yes,"  said  Dick,  in  a  quick  outburst.  "I  think  just 
that.  It's  a  risk  you've  no  business  to  take.  In  your 
condition,  too.  Oh,  yes,  I  know  you  do  look  fit  enough, 
but  you  can't  depend  on  that.  Besides — Jack,  who's  that 
woman?  What's  she  going  up  into  the  woods  for?  She's 
not  going  to  the  hut?  Is  that  why ?" 

Raven  stood  looking  at  him,  studying  not  so  much  his 
face  as  the  situation.  He  turned  to  the  library  door. 

"Come  in,  Dick,"  he  said.  We'll  talk  it  out.  We  can't 
either  of  us  sleep." 

Dick  followed  him  in  and  they  took  their  accustomed 
chairs.  Raven  reached  for  his  pipe,  but  he  did  not  fill 
it :  only  sat  holding  it,  passing  his  thumb  back  and  forth 
over  the  bowl.  He  was  determining  to  be  temperate,  to 
be  fair.  Dick  could  not  forget  he  was  old,  but  he  must 
force  himself  not  to  gibe  at  Dick  for  being  young. 

379 


380  OLD  CROW 

"Do  you  feel  able."  he  said,  "to  hear  a  queer  story  and 
keep  mum  over  it ?  Or  do  you  feel  that  a  chap  like  me, 
who  ought  to  be  in  the  Psychopathic,  hasn't  any  right  to 
a  square  deal?  When  you  see  me  going  off  my  nut,  as 
you  expect,  shall  you  feel  obliged  to  give  in  your  evi 
dence,  same  as  families  do  to  the  doctor  and  the  clergyman 
if  a  man's  all  in?" 

Dick  was  straight. 

"I'll  do  my  best,"  he  said.  "But  a  woman — like  that — 
and  you  meeting  her  as  you  did !  It's  not  like  you,  Jack. 
You  never'd  have  done  such  a  thing  in  all  your  born  days 
if  you  weren't  so  rattled." 

There  were  arguments  at  the  back  of  his  mind  he  could 
not.  in  decency,  use.  He  remembered  Raven's  look  when 
he  drew  her  in.  and  the  tragic  one  that  mirrored  it:  pas 
sionate  entreaty  on  the  woman's  face,  on  the  man's  pas 
sionate  welcome.  As  usual,  it  was  the  real  witnesses  of 
life  standing  dumb  in  the  background  that  alone  had  the 
power  to  convict.  But  they  could  not  be  brought  into 
court.  Custom  forbade  it,  the  code  between  man  and  man. 
Yet  there  they  were,  all  the  same. 

"Well  1"  said  Raven.  He  had  responded  with  only  a 
little  whimsical  lift  of  the  eyebrows  to  this  last.  "If  you 
won't  trust  me.  I  must  you.  That's  all  there  is  about  it. 
The  woman  is  our  neighbor.  Israel  Tenney's  wife,  and  she's 
in  danger  of  her  life  from  her  husband,  and  she  won't  leave 
him." 

Dick  stared  as  at  the  last  thing  he  had  expected.  He 
shook  his  head. 

"Too  thin,"  he  said.  "I've  seen  Tenney  and  I've  heard 
him  spoken  of.  He's  a  psalm-singing  Methody,  or  some 
thing  of  that  sort.  Why,  I  met  him  one  day,  Jerry  and 
I,  and  he  stared  at  me  as  if  he  wanted  to  know  me  again. 
And  Jerry  said  afterward  he  was  probably  going  to  ask 


OLD  CROW  381 

me  if  I'd  found  the  Lord;  but  he  changed  his  mind  or 
.something.  No,  Jack,  don't  you  be  taken  in.  That 
woman's  pulling  your  leg." 

"Dick,"  said  Raven,  "I've  been  told  you  have  a  vti  y 
vivid  sense  of  drama  in  your  narrative  verse.  You 
couldn't,  by  any  possibility,  apply  it  to  real  life?" 

"Oh,  I  know,"  said  Dick.  "New  England's  chock  full 
of  tragedy.  But  I  tell  you  I've  seen  Tenney.  He's  only 
a  kind  of  a  Praise-God  Barebones.  Put  him  back  a  few 
hundred  years,  and  you'd  see  him  sailing  for  Plymouth, 
for  freedom  to  worship  God.  (Obstinate,  too,  like  the 
rest  of  'em.  He  wouldn't  worship  anybody  else's  God, 
only  the  one  he'd  set  up  for  himself.)  If  his  wife  didn't 
mind  him,  he  might  pray  with  her  or  growl  over  the 
dinner  table,  but  he  wouldn't  bash  her  head  in.  L'nder- 
stand,  Jack,  I've  seen  Tenney." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven  drily,  "I've  seen  Tenney,  too.  And 
seen  him  in  action.  Now,  Dickie,  you  put  away  your 
man-of-the-world  attitude  toward  battle,  murder,  and 
sudden  death,  and  you  let  me  tell  you  a  few  things  about 
Tenney." 

He  began  with  the  day  when  he  had  found  Tira  in  the 
woods.  He  touched  on  the  facts  briefly,  omitting  to 
confess  what  the  woman  looked  to  his  dazzled  eyes.  It 
was  a  drawing  austerely  black  and  white.  Could  he  tell 
anyone — anyone  but  Xan — how  she  had  seemed  to  him 
there,  the  old.  old  picture  of  motherhood,  divine  yet 
human?  It  was  too  much  to  risk.  If  he  did  lay  his  mind 
bare  about  that  moment  which  was  his  alone,  and  Dick 
met  it  with  his  unimaginative  astuteness,  he  could  not 
trust  himself  to  be  patient  with  the  boy.  He  said  little 
more  than  that  he  had  given  her  the  freedom  of  the 
hut,  and  that  he  meant  always  to  have  it  ready  for  her. 
Then  he  came  to  this  last  night  of  all,  when  she  had  run 


382  OLD  CROW 

away  from  Tenney,  not  because  he  had  been  violent,  but 
because  he  had  "kept  still."  That  did  take  hold  on 
Dick's  imagination,  the  imagination  he  seemed  able  to 
divorce  from  the  realities  of  life  and  kept  for  the  printed 
page. 

"By  thunder!"  he  said.  "Burned  the  crutch,  did  she? 
That's  a  story  in  itself,  a  real  story:  Mary  Wilkins, 
Robert  Frost.  That's  great !" 

"Sounds  pretty  big  to  me,"  said  Raven  quietly.  "But 
it's  not  for  print.  See  you  don't  feel  tempted  to  use  it. 
Now,  here  we  are  with  Tira  up  against  it.  She's  got  to 
make  a  quick  decision.  And  she's  made  it." 

"Do  you  call  her  by  her  first  name?"  asked  Dick,  leap 
ing  the  main  issue  to  frown  over  the  one  possibly  signifi 
cant  of  Raven's  state  of  mind. 

"Yes,"  said  Raven  steadily,  "I  rather  think  I  call  her 
by  her  first  name.  I  don't  know  whether  I  ever  have  'to 
her  head,'  as  Charlotte  would  say,  but  I  don't  seem  to 
feel  like  calling  her  by  Tenney's  name.  Well,  Tira's  de 
cided.  She's  going  to  give  her  baby  to  Nan." 

Dick's  eyes  enlarged  to  such  an  extent,  his  mouth 
opened  so  vacuously,  that  Raven  laughed  out.  Evi 
dently  Dick  wasn't  regarding  the  matter  from  Tira's 
standpoint,  or  even  Raven's  now,  but  his  own. 

"Nan !"  he  echoed,  when  he  could  get  his  lips  into 
action.  "Where  does  Nan  come  in?" 

"Oh,"  said  Raven,  with  a  most  matter-of-fact  cool 
ness,  "Nan  came  in  long  ago.  I  told  her  about  it,  and 
it  seems  she  went  to  see  Tira  off  her  own  bat,  and  offered 
to  take  the  baby." 

"She  sha'n't  do  it,"  proclaimed  Dick.  "I  simply  won't 
have  it,  that's  all." 

"I  fancy,"  said  Raven,  "Nan'll  tell  you  you've  got 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  it.  And  really,  Dick,  you 


OLD  CROW  383 

ncvcr'll  get  Nan  by  bullying  her.  Don't  you  know  you 
won't?" 

Dick,  having  a  perfectly  good  chance,  turned  the 
tables  on  him  neatly. 

"That'll  do,"  said  he,  remembering  how  Raven  had 
shut  him  up  when  he  dragged  in  Anne  Hamilton.  "We 
won't  discuss  Nan." 

Now  it  was  Raven's  turn  to  gape,  but  on  the  heels 
of  it,  seeing  the  neatness  of  the  thrust,  he  smiled. 

"Right,  boy,"  he  said.  "Good  for  you.  We  won't 
discuss  Nan,  and  we  won't  discuss  Tira.  But  you'll 
hold  your  tongue  about  this  business,  and  if  you  find 
me  opening  the  door  of  my  house  at  midnight,  you'll  re 
member  it's  my  business,  and  keep  your  mouth  shut. 
Now  I'm  going  up  the  hill  to  see  she's  safe,  and  if  you 
follow  me,  in  your  general  policy  of  keeping  on  my 
trail,  I  don't  quite  know  what  will  happen.  But  some 
thing  will — to  one  of  us." 

He  got  up,  went  into  the  hall  and  found  his  cap  and 
leather  jacket.  Dick  meantime  stood  in  the  library 
door  regarding  him  from  so  troubled  a  mind  that  Raven 
halted  and  put  a  hand  on  his  shoulder. 

"Cut  it  out,  boy,"  he  said,  "all  this  guardian  angel 
business.  You  let  me  alone  and  I'll  let  you  alone. 
We're  both  decent  chaps,  but  when  you  begin  with  your 
psychotherapy  and  that  other  word  I  don't  know  how 
to  pronounce — 

Dick,  having,  at  this  period  of  his  life  only  an  inac 
tive  sense  of  humor,  mechanically  supplied  it:  "Psychi 
atry." 

"What  a  beast  of  a  word !  Yes,  that's  it.  Well,  they're 
red  rags  to  me,  all  these  gadgets  out  of  the  half-baked 
mess  they've  stirred  up  by  spying  on  our  insides.  I 
can't  be  half  decent  to  you.  But  I  want  to  be.  I  want 


384  OLD  CROW 

us  to  be  decent  to  each  other.  It's  damnable  if  we  can't. 
Go  to  bed,  and  I'll  run  up  and  see  if  poor  Tira's  safe." 

He  did  not  wait  for  an  answer,  but  went  out  at  the 
front  door,  and  Dick  heard  him  whistling  down  the  path. 
The  whistle  seemed  like  an  intentional  confirmation  of  his 
being  in  a  cheerfully  normal  frame  of  mind,  not  likely  to 
be  led  too  far  afield  by  premonitions  of  New  England 
tragedy.  Perhaps  that  was  why  he  did  whistle,  for  when 
he  reached  the  road  he  stopped  and  completed  the  first 
half  of  the  ascent  in  silence.  Then,  as  the  whistle  might 
mean  something  reassuring  to  Tira,  he  began  again  with 
a  bright  loudness,  bold  as  the  oriole's  song.  He  reached 
the  hut,  whistling  up  to  the  very  door,  and  then  his 
breath  failed  him  on  a  note,  the  place  looked  so  forbid 
dingly  black  in  the  shadow,  the  woods  were  so  still.  It 
did  not  seem  possible  that  a  woman's  warm  heart  was 
beating  inside  there,  Tira's  heart,  home  of  loves  un 
quenchable.  He  put  his  hand  down  under  the  stone.  The 
key  was  there,  and  rising,  he  felt  his  mind  heavy  with 
reproaches  of  her.  She  had  gone  back  to  Tenney.  The 
night's  work  was  undone.  What  was  the  use  of  drawing 
her  a  step  along  the  path  of  safety  if  she  turned  back 
the  instant  he  trusted  her  alone?  He  went  down  the 
hill  again  in  a  dull  distaste  for  himself.  It  seemed  to 
him  another  man  might  have  managed  it  better,  swept 
her  off  her  feet  and  bound  her  in  an  allegiance  where 
she  would  obey.  When  he  reached  his  own  house,  he  was 
too  discontented  even  to  glance  at  Dick's  window  and 
wonder  whether  the  boy  was  watching  for  him.  The 
place  was  silent,  and  he  put  out  the  lights  and  went  to 
bed. 

Next  morning  he  had  got  hold  of  himself  and,  with 
that  obstinate  patience  which  is  living,  went  to  the  li 
brary  after  breakfast  and  called  up  Nan.  It  was  won- 


OLD  CROW  385 

derful  to  hear  her  fresh  voice.  It  broke  in  upon  his 
discouragements  and  made  them  fly,  like  birds  feeding  on 
evil  food.  Would  she  listen  carefully,  he  asked.  Would 
she  translate  him,  because  he  couldn't  speak  in  any  de 
tail.  And  when  he  had  got  thus  far,  he  remembered  an 
other  medium,  and  began  the  story  of  last  night  in  French. 
Nan  listened  with  hardly  a  commenting  word,  and  when 
he  had  finished  her  bald  answer  was  ridiculously  reassur 
ing. 

"Sure !"  said  Nan.  "I'll  be  there  to-night.  Send  Jerry 
for  me.  Eight  o'clock." 

"God  bless  you !"  said  Raven.  "You  needn't  bring  any 
luggage.  It'll  probably  be  wiser  to  go  right  back." 

Nan  said  "Sure!"  again,  no  doubt,  Raven  thought,  as 
indicating  her  view  of  her  errand  as  a  homespun  one 
there  was  no  doubt  of  her  carrying  out  with  the  utmost 
simplicity.  Then  he  went  to  tell  Jerry  he  was  to  meet 
the  evening  train,  and  on  the  way  he  told  Dick: 

"Nan's  coming  to-night." 

"Nan!"   said  Dick.     "Not " 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.  "I  telephoned  her.  Buck  up,  old 
man.  Here's  another  chance  for  you,  don't  you  see? 
We're  in  a  nasty  hole,  Tira  and  incidentally  Nan  and  I. 
Play  the  game,  old  son,  and  help  us  out." 

"What,"  inquired  Dick,  "do  you  expect  me  to  do?" 

"Chiefly,"  said  Raven,  "keep  out.  It's  my  game  and 
Nan's  and  Tira's.  But  you  play  yours.  Don't  sulk. 
Show  her  what  a  noble  Red  Man  you  can  be." 

Dick  turned  away,  guiltily,  Raven  thought,  as  if  he 
had  plans  of  his  own.  What  the  deuce  did  he  mean  to 
do?  But  their  day  passed  amicably  enough,  though  they 
were  not  long  together.  Raven  went  up  to  the  hut  and 
stayed  most  of  the  afternoon.  It  was  not  so  much  that 
he  expected  Tira  to  come  as  that  he  felt  the  nearness 


386  OLD  CROW 

of  her  there  in  the  room  she  had  disarranged  with  barri 
cading1  chairs  and  pillows  and  then  put  in  order  again 
before  she  left.  He  could  see  her  stepping  softly  about, 
with  her  deft,  ordered  movements,  making  it  comely  for 
him  to  find.  She  had  left  pictures  of  herself  on  the  air, 
sad  pictures,  most  of  them,  telling  the  tale  of  her  terror 
and  foreboding,  but  others  of  them  quite  different.  There 
were  moments  he  remembered  when,  in  pauses  of  her  talk 
with  him,  she  glanced  at  the  child,  and  still  others  when 
she  sat  immobile,  her  hands  clasped  on  her  knee,  her  gaze 
on  the  fire.  Henceforth  the  hut  would  be  full  of  her  pres 
ence,  hers  and  Old  Crow's.  And,  unlike  as  they  were,  they 
seemed  to  harmonize.  Both  were  pitiful  and  yet  austere  in 
their  sincerity ;  and  for  both  life  had  been  a  coil  of  tangled 
meanings.  He  stayed  there  until  nearly  dark,  and  his 
musings  waxed  arid  and  dull  with  the  growing  chill  of  the 
room.  For  he  would  not  light  the  fire.  It  had  to  be  left  in 
readiness. 

When  he  went  down  he  found  Dick  uneasily  tramping 
the  veranda. 

"Charlotte  wants  us  to  have  a  cup  of  tea,"  said  Dick. 
"She  said  supper's  put  off  till  they  come." 

"They  ?"  inquired  Raven.     "Who's  they  ?" 

"It's  no  use,  Jack,"  Dick  broke  forth.  "I  might  as  well 
tell  you.  I  s'pose  if  I  didn't  you'd  kick  up  some  kind  of  a 
row  later.  I  telephoned  Mum." 

"You  don't  mean,"  said  Raven,  in  a  voice  of  what  used 
to  be  called  "ominous  calm,"  before  we  shook  off  the  old 
catch-words  and  got  indirections  of  our  own,  "you  don't 
mean  you've  sent  for  her!" 

"It's  no  use,"  said  Dick  again,  though  with  a  changed 
implication,  "you  might  as  well  take  things  as  they  are. 
Nan  can't  come  up  here  slumming  without  an  older 
woman.  It  isn't  the  thing.  It  simply  isn't  done." 


OLD  CHOW  387 

Raven,  through  the  window,  saw  Charlotte  hovering  in 
the  library  with  the  tea  tray.  He  watched  her  absently, 
as  if  his  mind  were  entirely  with  her.  Yet  really  it  was 
on  the  queerness  of  things  as  they  are  in  the  uniform 
jacket  of  propriety  and  the  same  things  when  circum 
stance  thrusts  the  human  creature  out  of  his  enveloping 
customs  and  sends  him  into  battle.  He  thought  of  Dick's 
philosophy  of  the  printed  word.  He  thought  of  Nan's  des 
perate  life  of  daily  emergency  in  France.  Yet  they  were 
all,  lie  whimsically  concluded,  being  squared  to  Aunt 
Anne's  rigidity  of  line.  But  why  hers?  Why  not  Old 
Crow's?  Old  Crow  would  have  had  him  rescue  Tira,  even 
through  difficult  ways.  He  opened  the  door. 

"Come  on  in,"  he  said.  "Charlotte's  buttered  the  toast." 

Dick  followed  him,  and  they  sat  down  to  their  abundant 
tea,  Charlotte  pausing  a  moment  to  regard  them  with  her 
all-enveloping  lavishment  of  kindliness.  Were  they  satis 
fied?  Could  she  bring  something  more? 

"The  trouble  with  you,  Dick,"  said  Raven,  after  his 
third  slice  of  toast,  huttered,  he  approvingly  noted,  to 
the  last  degree  of  drippiness,  "is  poverty  of  invention. 
You  repeat  your  climax.  Now,  this  sending  for  Milly : 
it's  precisely  what  you  did  before.  That's  a  mistake  the 
actors  make:  repeated  farewells." 

Dick  made  no  answer.    He,  too,  ate  toast  prodigiously. 

"Now,"  said  Raven,  when  they  had  finished,  "do  I  un 
derstand  you  mean  to  put  your  mother  wise  about  what 
I  told  you  last  night?  Yes  or  no?" 

"I  shall  do '  said  Dick,  and  at  his  pause  Raven 

interrupted  him. 

"No,  you  won't,"  said  he.  "You  won't  do  what  you 
think  best.  Take  it  from  me,  you  won't.  What  I  told  you 
wasn't  my  secret.  It's  poor  Tira's.  If  you  give  her  away 
to  your  mother — good  God!  think  of  it,  Milly,  with  her 


388  OLD  CROW 

expensive  modern  theories  and  her  psychiatry — got  it 
right,  that  time ! — muddling  up  things  for  a  woman  like 
her!  Where  was  I?  Well,  simply,  if  you  play  a  dirty 
trick  like  that  on  me,  I'll  pack  you  off,  you  and  your 
mother  both.  I  don't  like  to  remind  you^  but,  after  all, 
old  man,  the  place  is  mine." 

The  blood  came  into  Dick's  face.  He  felt  misjudged 
in  his  affection  and  abused. 

"You  can't  see,"  he  said.  "I  don't  believe  it's  because 
you  can't.  You  won't.  It  isn't  Nan  alone.  It's  you. 
You're  not  fit.  You're  no  more  fit  than  you  were  when 
Mum  was  here  before.  And  you  can  pack  me  off,  but,  by 
thunder !  I  won't  go." 

"Very  well,"  said  Raven,  with  a  happy  inspiration. 
"You  needn't.  I'll  go  myself.  And  I'll  take  Nan  with  me." 
A  picture  of  Nan  and  her  own  vision  of  happy  isles  came 
up  before  him,  and  he  concluded:  "Yes,  by  George!  I'll 
take  Nan.  And  we'll  sail  for  the  Malay  Peninsula,  or  an 
undiscovered  island,  and  wear  Mother  Hubbards  and  live 
on  breadfruit,  and  you  and  your  precious  conventions  can 
go  to  pot." 

So,  having  soothed  himself  by  his  own  intemperance, 
he  got  up,  found  his  pipe  and  a  foolish  novel  he  made  a 
poin-t  of  reading  once  a  year — it  would  hardly  do  to  tell 
what  it  was,  lest  the  reader  of  this  true  story  fail  to  sym 
pathize  with  his  literary  views  and  so  with  all  his  views — 
and  sat  down  to  await  his  guests  in  a  serviceable  state  of 
good  humor.  He  had  brought  Dick  to  what  Charlotte 
would  call  "a  realizing  sense."  He  could  afford  a  bit  of 
tolerance.  Dick  got  up  and  flung  out  of  the  room,  finding 
Raven,  he  told  himself,  in  one  of  his  extravagant  moods. 
Nine  times  out  of  ten  the  moods  meant  nothing.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  this  present  erratic  state  of  a  changed 
Raven,  they  might  mean  anything.  For  himself,  he  was 


OLD  CHOW  389 

impatient,  with  the  headlong  rush  of  young  love.  Nan 
was  coming.  She  was  on  the  way.  Would  she  be  the  same, 
distant  with  her  cool  kindliness,  her  old  lovely  self  to 
Raven  only,  or  might  she  be  changed  into  the  Nan  who 
kissed*  him  that  one  moment  of  his  need?  He  snatched  his 
hat  and  tore  out  of  the  house,  and  Raven,  glancing  up 
from  his  novel,  saw  him  striding  down  the  path  and 
thought  approvingly  he  was  a  wise  young  dog  to  walk  off 
some  of  his  headiness  before  Nan  came.  As  for  him,  he 
would  do/e  a  little  over  his  foolish  book,  as  b'ecame  a  man 
along  in  years.  That  wras  what  Charlotte  would  say, 
"along  in  years."  Was  it  so?  What  a  devil  of  an  expres 
sion,  like  all  the  rest  of  them  that  were  so  much  worse  than 
the  thing  itself:  "elderly,"  "middle-aged,"  what  a  gro 
tesque  vocabulary  !  And  he  surprised  himself  by  throwing 
his  foolish  book,  with  an  accurate  aim,  at  a  space  in  the 
shelves,  where  it  lodged  and  hung  miserably,  and  getting 
up  and  tearing  down  the  wralk  at  a  pace  emulating  Dick's, 
but  in  the  opposite  direction :  the  result  of  these  athletic 
measures  being  that  when  Amelia  and  Nan  drove  up  with 
Jerry,  the  station  master's  pung  following  with  two  small 
trunks  that  seemed  to  wink  at  Raven,  with  an  implication 
of  their  competitive  resolve  to  stay,  two  correctly  clad 
genilemen  wrere  waiting  on  the  veranda  in  a  state  of  high 
decorum.  As  to  the  decorum,  it  didn't  last,  so  far  as 
Raven  was  concerned.  Messages  of  a  mutual  understand 
ing  passed  between  his  eyes  and  Nan's.  He  burst  into  sud 
den  laughter,  but  Nan,  more  sagely  alive  to  the  dangers 
of  the  occasion,  kept  her  gravity. 

"Well,"  said  Amelia,  as  Raven,  still  laughing,  solicit 
ously  lifted  her  out,  "you  seem  to  be  in  a  very  happy 
frame  of  mind.  I'm  glad  you  can  laugh." 


XXXIV 

Thereafter  they  all  behaved  as  if  they  had  separated 
yesterday  and  nothing  was  more  natural  than  to  find 
themselves  together  again.  Amelia,  with  bitterness  in 
her  heart,  accepted  the  room  she  again  longed  to  repudi 
ate,  and  Nan,  with  a  li-fted  eyebrow  at  Raven,  as  if  won 
dering  whether  she'd  really  better  be  as  daring  as  he  indi 
cated,  followed  Charlotte  up  the  stairs.  At  supper  they 
talked  decorously  of  the  state  of  the  nation,  which  Raven 
frankly  conceived  of  as  going  to  the  dogs,  and  Amelia 
upheld,  from  an  optimisim  which  assumed  Raven  to  be 
amenable  to  only  the  most  hopeful  of  atmospheres.  After 
supper,  when  they  hesitated  before  the  library  door,  Nan 
said  quite  openly,  as  one  who  has  decided  that  only  the 
straight  course  will  do : 

"Rookie,  could  I  see  you  a  minute?  In  the  dining- 
room?"  She  took  in  Amelia  with  her  frank  smile. 
"Please,  Mrs.  Powell !  It's  business." 

"Certainly,"  Amelia  said,  rather  stiffly.  "Come,  Dick. 
We'll  keep  up  the  fire." 

They  had  evidently,  she  and  Dick,  resolved,  though  in 
dependently  of  each  other,  to  behave  their  best,  and  Dick, 
in  excess  of  social  virtue,  shut  the  library  door,  so  that  no 
wisp  of  talk  would  float  that  way  and  settle  on  them.  Nan 
confronted  Raven  with  gayest  eyes. 

"Did  you  ever!"  she  said,  recurring  to  the  Charlottian 
form  of  comment.  "At  the  last  minute,  if  you  please, 

when  I  was  taking  the  train.     There  she  was  behind  me. 

390 


OLD  CROW  391 

We  talked  all  tin*  way.  'stiddy  stream'  (Charlotte!)  and 
not  a  thing  you  could  put  your  finger  on.  Did  he  send 
for  her?" 

"I  rather  think  so,"  said  Raven,  giving  Dick  every 
possible  advantage.  Then,  rallied  by  her  smiling  eyes, 
"Well,  yes,  of  course  he  did.  Don't  look  at  me  like  that. 
I  have  to  turn  myself  inside  out,  you  she-tyrant !" 

"Does  Dick  know?"  she  hastened  to  ask.   "About  Tira?" 

-Yes." 

"Know  what  I'm  here  for?" 

"Yes." 

"Given  his  word  not  to  blab?  Hope  to  die?"  That  was 
their  childish  form  of  vow,  hers  and  Dick's. 

"I  hope  so,"  said  Raven  doubtfully.  "I  represented  it 
to  him  as  being  necessary." 

"I'll  represent  it,  too,"  said  Nan.  "Now,  Rookie,  I'm 
going  over  there,  first  thing  to-morrow  morning.  I'm 
going  to  see  Tenney." 

"The  deuce  you  are!    I'm  afraid  that  won't  do." 

"Nothing  else  will,"  said  Nan.  "Tenney's  got  to  give 
his  consent.  We  can't  do  any  kidnaping  business.  That's 
no  good." 

She  said  it  witli  the  peremptory  implication  of  extin 
guishing  middle-aged  scruples,  and  Raven  also  felt  it  to 
be  "no  good." 

"Very  well,"  said  he.  "You  know  best.  I'll  go  with 
you." 

"Oh,  no,  you  won't.  There  are  too  many  men-folks  in 
it  now.  I'm  going  alone.  Now,  come  back  and  talk  to  the 
family.  Oh,  I  hope  and  pray  Dick'll  be  good !  Doesn't  he 
look  dear  to-night,  all  red,  as  if  he'd  been  logging?  Has 
he?  Have  you?  You  look  just  the  same.  Oh,  I  do  love 
Dick !  I  wish  he'd  let  me,  the  way  I  want  to." 

Meantime  Charlotte  had  come  in,  and  Nan  went  to  her 


392  OLD  CROW 

and  put  her  hands  on  her  shoulders  and  rubbed  cheeks,  as 
she  used  to  do  with  Raven. 

"Come  on,"  she  said  to  him.    "Time!" 

So  they  went  into  the  library  and  conversed,  with  every 
conventional  flourish,  until  Amelia  set  the  pace  of  retire 
ment  by  a  ladylike  yawn.  But  she  had  a  word  to  say  be 
fore  parting,  reserved  perhaps  to  the  last  because  she 
found  herself  doubtful  of  Raven's  response.  If  she  had 
to  be  snubbed  she  could  simply  keep  on  her  way  out  of 
the  room. 

"John,"  said  she,  at  the  door,  with  the  effect  of  a  sud 
den  thought,  "how  about  Anne's  estate?  Are  they  getting 
it  settled?" 

Raven  hesitated  a  perceptible  instant.  He  somehow 
had  an  idea  the  estate  was  an  affair  of  his,  not  to  say 
Nan's. 

"I  suppose  so,"  he  answered,  frowning.  "Whitney's 
likely  to  do  the  right  thing." 

Amelia  was  never  especially  astute  in  the  manner  of 
danger  signals. 

"I  suppose,"  she  said,  "you've  made  up  your  mind 
what  to  invest  in.  Or  are  the  things  in  pretty  good  shape? 
Can  you  leave  them  as  they  are?" 

Dick  was  standing  by  the  hearth,  wishing  hard  for  a 
word  with  Nan.  She  had  smiled  at  him  once  or  twice,  so 
peaceably !  The  next  step  might  be  to  a  truce  and  then 
everlasting  bliss.  Now,  suddenly  aware  of  his  mother,  he 
ungratefully  kicked  the  fire  that  was  making  him  such 
pretty  dreams,  went  to  her,  took  her  by  the  arm  and 
proceeded  with  her  across  the  hall. 

"You  talk  too  much,"  said  Dick,  when  he  had  her  inside 
her  room.  "Don't  you  know  better  than  to  drag  in  Miss 
Anne?  He's  touchy  as  the  devil." 

"Then  he  must  get  over  it,"  said  Amelia,  in  her  best 


OLD  CROW  393 

manner  of  the  inti-lligrnt  mentor.  "Of  course,  she  was  a 
great  loss  to  him." 

"Don't  you  believe  it,"  said  Dick  conclusively.  "She 
had  her  paw  on  him.  What  the  deuce  is  it  in  him  that 
makes  all  the  women  want  to  dry-nurse  him  and  huild  him 
up  and  make  him  over?" 

Then  he  wondered  what  Nan  was  saying  to  Raven  at 
the  moment,  remembered  also  Raven's  injunction  to  play 
a  square  game  with  her  and,  though  his  feet  were  twitch 
ing  to  carry  him  back  to  the  library,  sat  doggedly  down 
at  his  mother's  hearth  and  encouraged  her  to  talk  inter 
minably.  Amelia  was  delighted.  She  didn't  know  Dick 
had  so  earnest  an  interest  in  the  Federation  of  Clubs  and 
her  popular  course  in  economics.  She  was  probably  never 
more  sustainedly  intelligent  than  in  that  half  hour,  until 
Dick  heard  Nan  going  up  to  bed,  sighed  heavily,  and  lost 
interest  in  the  woman  citi/m. 

Nan  and  Raven,  standing  by  the  fire,  in  their  unex 
pected  minute  of  solitude,  looked  at  each  other  and  smiled 
in  recognizing  that  they  were  alone  and  that  when  that 
happened  things  grew  simple  and  straight.  To  Raven 
there  was  also  the  sense  of  another  presence.  Anne  had 
somehow  been  invoked.  Amelia,  with  her  unfailing  dexter 
ity  in  putting  her  foot  in,  had  done  it :  but  still  there  Anne 
was,  with  the  unspoken  question  on  her  silent  lips.  What 
was  he  going  to  do?  He  knew  her  wish.  Presently  he 
would  have  her  money.  He  caught  the  interrogation  in 
Nan's  eyes.  What  was  he  going  to  do? 

"I  don't  know,  Nan,"  he  said.    "I  don't  know." 

"Never  mind,"  said  Nan.  "You'll  know  when  the  time 
comes." 

And  he  was  aware  that  she  was  still  in  her  mood  of 
forcing  him  on  to  make  his  own  decisions.  But,  easily  as  he 
read  her  mind,  there  were  many  things  he  did  not  see 


394  OLD  CHOW 

there.  It  was  a  turmoil  of  questions,  and  of  these  the  ques 
tion  of  Aunt  Anne  was  least.  Did  he  love  Tira?  This 
headed  the  list.  Did  he  want  to  tear  down  his  carefully 
built  edifice  of  culture  and  the  habit  of  conventional  life, 
and  run  away  with  Tira  to  elemental  simplicities  and  sweet 
deliriums  ?  And  if  he  did  love  Tira,  if  he  did  want  to  tear 
down  his  house  of  life  and  live  in  the  open,  she  would  help 
him.  But  all  she  said  was : 

"Good  night,  Rookie.    I'm  sleepy,  too." 

To  leap  a-  dull  interval  of  breakfast  banalities  is  to  find 
Nan,  on  a  crisp  day,  blue  above  and  white  below,  at  the 
Tenneys'  door.  Tira,  frankly  apprehensive,  came  to  let 
her  in.  Tira  had  had  a  bad  night.  The  burning  of  the 
crutch  fanned  a  fire  of  torment  in  her  uneasy  mind.  She 
had  hardly  slept,  and  though  she  heard  Tenney's  regular 
breathing  at  her  side,  she  began  to  have  a  suspicion  it 
was  not  a  natural  breathing.  She  was  persuaded  he 
meant  now  to  keep  track  of  her,  by  night  as  well  as  day. 
It  began  to  seem  to  her  a  colossal  misfortune  that  the 
crutch  was  not  there  leaning  against  the  foot  of  the  bed, 
and  now  its  absence  was  not  so  much  her  fault  as  a  part 
of  its  own  malice.  Nan,  noting  the  worn  pallor  of  her 
face  and  the  dread  in  her  eyes,  gathered  that  Tenney 
was  at  home.  She  put  out  her  hand,  and  Tira,  after  an 
instant's  hesitation,  gave  hers.  Nan  wondered  if  she  were 
in  a  terror  wild  enough  to  paralyze  her  power  of  action. 
Still,  she  had  given  her  hand,  and  when  Nan  stepped  up 
on  the  sill,  with  a  cheerful  implication  of  intending, 
against  any  argument,  to  come  in,  she  stood  aside  and 
followed  her.  But  at  the  instant  of  her  stepping  aside, 
Nan  was  aware  that  she  threw  both  hands  up  slightly.  It 
was  the  merest  movement,  an  unstudied  gesture  of  despair. 
Tenney  was  sitting  by  the  kitchen  stove,  and  Nan  went  to 
him  with  outstretched  hand. 


OLD  CROW  395 

"I  thought  I  should  find  you  if  I  came  early  enough," 
she  said.  "How's  your  foot?" 

She  had  a  direct  address  country  folk  liked.  She  was 
never  "stand-off',"  "stuck-up."  It  was  as  easy  talking 
with  her  as  with  John  Raven. 

"Some  better,  I  guess,"  said  Tenney.  He  eyed  her  curi 
ously.  Had  Raven  sent  her,  for  some  hidden  reason,  to 
sp3r  out  the  land? 

"You  get  round,  don't  you  ?"  pursued  Nan. 

She  took  the  chair  Tira  brought  her  and  regarded  him 
across  the  shining  stove.  Tira  withdrew  to  a  distance,  and 
stood  immovable  by  the  scullery  door,  as  if,  Nan  thought, 
she  meant  to  keep  open  her  line  of  retreat. 

"No,"  said  Tenney  grimly,  "I  don't  git  about  much. 
Three  times  a  day  I  git  from  the  house  to  the  barn.  I 
expect  to  do  better,  as  time  goes  on.  I've  got  my  eye  on 
a  cord  wood  stick,  an'  I'm  plannin'  how  I  can  whittle  me 
out  a  crutch." 

Nan,  glancing  at  Tira,  caught  the  tremor  that  went 
over  her  and  understood  this  was,  in  a  veiled  way,  a  threat. 
She  came,  at  a  leap,  to  the  purpose  of  her  call. 

"Mr.  Tenney,"  she  said,  "I'm  an  awfully  interfering 
person.  I've  come  to  ask  you  and  your  wife  to  let  me  do 
something." 

Tenney  was  staring  at  her  with  lacklustre  eyes. 
In  these  latter  days,  the  old  mad  spark  in  them  had 
gone. 

"Your  baby,"  said  Nan,  feeling  her  heart  beat  hard, 
"isn't  right.  I  know  places  where  such  poor  little  children 
are  made — right — if  they  can  be.  They're  studied  and 
looked  after.  I  want  you  to  let  me  take  him  away  with 
me  and  see  if  something  can  be  done.  His  mother  could 
go,  too,  if  she  likes.  You  could  go.  Only,  I'll  be  respon 
sible.  I'll  arrange  it  all." 


396  OLD  CROW 

Tenney  still  stared  at  her,  and  she  found  the  dull  gaze 
disconcerting. 

"So,"  he  said  at  length,  not  even  glancing  at  Tira,  "so 
she's  put  that  into  your  head." 

"So  far  as  that  goes,"  said  Nan  boldly,  "I've  put  it  into 
hers.  I  saw  he  wasn't  right.  I  told  her  I'd  do  everything 
in  my  power,  in  anybody's  power,  to  have  him" — she  hesi 
tated  here  for  a  homely  word  he  might  take  in — "seen  to. 
And  now  (you're  his  father)  I've  come  to  you." 

Tenney  sat  a  long  time,  motionless,  his  eyes  on  the 
window  at  the  end  of  the  room  where  a  woodbine  spray 
was  tapping,  and  again  Nan  became  conscious  of  the 
increased  tremor  in  Tira's  frame.  For  now  it  seemed  to 
have  run  over  her  and  strangely  to  keep  time  to  the  wood 
bine  spray  outside.  One  would  have  said  the  woodbine, 
looking  in,  had,  in  a  mad,  irritating  way,  made  itself  the 
reflex  of  these  human  emotions  within  the  room.  Tennej 
spoke,  drily  yet  without  emphasis : 

"Then  he  put  ye  up  to  this?" 

"Who?"  asked  Nan. 

For  some  obscure  reason  he  would  not  mention  Raven's 
name.  But  he  spoke  with  a  mildness  of  courtesy  surpris 
ing  to  her  and  evidently  the  more  alarming  to  Tira,  for 
she  shook  the  more  and  the  vine  appallingly  knew  and 
kept  her  company. 

"I'm  obleeged  to  ye,"  said  Tenney.  "But  I  don't  want 
nothin'  done  for  me  nor  mine.  He's  mine,  ye  see.  He's 
in  there  asleep" — he  pointed  to  the  open  bedroom 
door — "an'  asleep  or  awake,  he's  mine,  same's  any  man's 
property  is  his.  An'  if  he  ain't  right,  he  ain't,  an'  I 
know  why,  an'  it's  the  will  o'  the  Lord,  an'  the  Lord's 
will  is  goin'  to  be  fulfilled  now  an'  forever  after,  amen !" 

The  tang  of  scripture  phrasing  led  him  further  to  the 
channel  his  mind  was  always  fumbling  for. 


OLD  CROW  397 

"Do  you,"  he  asked  Nan,  not  with  any  great  show 
of  fervor,  but  as  if  this  were  his  appointed  task,  "do  you 
believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  yet?  Be  ye  saved?" 

"Mr.  Tenney,"  said  Nan,  "I  don't  care  a  scrap  whether 
I'm  saved  or  not,  if  I  can  make  this  world  swing  a  little 
easier  on  its  hinges."  That  seemed  to  her  a  figure  not 
markedly  vivid,  and  she  continued.  "It  needs  a  sight  of 
oiling.  Don't  you  see  it  does?  O,  Mr.  Tenney,  think 
of  the  poor  little  boy  that's  got  to  live  along" — the  one 
phrase  still  seemed  to  her  the  best — "not  right,  and  grow 
to  be  a  man,  and  you  may  die  and  leave  him,  and  his 
mother  may  die.  What's  he  going  to  do  then?" 

"No,"  said  Tenney  quietly,  with  the  slightest  glance  at 
Tira  in  her  tremor  there  by  the  door,  "I  ain't  goin'  to  die, 
not  this  v'y'ge.  If  anybody's  goin'  to,  it  ain't  me." 

"O  Isr'el !"  said  Tira.  Her  voice  rose  scarcely  above  a 
whisper  and  she  bent  toward  him  in  a  beseeching  way  as  if 
she  might,  in  another  instant,  run  to  him.  "You  let  him 
go.  You  an'  me'll  stay  here  together,  long  as  we  live. 
There  sha'n't  nothin'  come  betwixt  us,  Isr'el."  In  this 
Nan  heard  a  hidden  anguish  of  avowal.  "But  you  let 
him  go." 

Tenney  did  not  regard  her.  He  spoke,  pointedly  to 
Nan: 

"I'm  obleeged  to  ye."  He  rose  from  his  chair.  He 
was  dismissing  her.  His  action  approached  a  dignity  not 
to  be  ignored,  and  Nan  also  rose. 

"I  sha'n't  give  it  up,"  she  said.     "I  shall  come  again." 

She  tried  to  smile  at  him  with  composure,  including 
Tira  in  the  friendliness  of  it,  but  Tira,  oblivous  of  her, 
was  staring  at  Tenney,  and  Nan  found  herself  outside, 
trouble  in  her  mind.  Tira  had  not  gone  to  the  door  with 
her.  She  had  staid  still  staring,  in  that  fixed  interrogation, 
at  Tenney.  He  looked  at  her  now,  met  her  eyes,  and  gave 


398  OLD  CROW 

a  little  grimace.  He  had  done  well,  the  movement  said. 
He  had  seen  through  it  all.  He  was  pleased  with  himself. 
Now  he  spoke  to  her,  so  affably  that  she  frowned  with  per 
plexity  at  finding  him  kind. 

"  'Tain't  so  terrible  hard,"  said  Tenney,  "to  see 
through  folks,  once  ye  set  your  mind  on  it.  He  started 
her  out  on  that,  he  an'  you  together,  mebbe.  '  'F  I  git  rid 
o'  the  young  one,'  you  says,  'I  shall  have  more  freedom  to 
range  round,  outdoor.'  Mebbe  you  said  it  to  him.  Mebbe 
he  said  it  to  you.  Mebbe  'twas  t'other  one — Martin — 
that  said  it  an'  you  took  it  up.  No,  'tain't  so  hard  to  see 
through  folks,  once  ye  git  a  start." 

He  turned  and  took,  with  a  difficulty  half  assumed, 
the  few  steps  to  the  wood-box,  selected  a  couple  of  sticks 
and,  with  a  quiet  deftness  that  seemed  to  indicate  a  mind 
bent  only  on  the  act  itself,  put  them  in  the  stove.  Tira 
watched  him,  fascinated  by  him,  the  strength  in  abey 
ance,  the  wayward  will.  When  he  set  on  the  stove  cover, 
it  seemed  to  break  the  spell  of  her  rigidity  and  she 
turned,  hurried  into  the  scullery  and  came  back.  She 
had,  he  saw,  a  knife.  That  was  not  alarming.  It  was  a 
small  kitchen  knife,  but  he  recognized  it  as  the  one  she 
made  a  great  fuss  about,  asking  him  to  sharpen  it  often 
and  keeping  it  for  special  use.  But  she  gripped  it 
strangely.  Besides,  there  was  the  strangeness  of  her  face. 

"Here!  here!"  he  said.  "What  you  doin'  o'  that  knife?" 

Tira  was  not  thinking  of  him.  She  had  gone,  with  her 
quick,  lithe  step,  to  the  window  where  the  vine  was  tap 
ping,  and  thrown  it  up. 

"Here!"  he  called  again,  his  uneasiness  shifting;  what 
ever  a  woman  was  doing,  with  a  face  like  that,  she  must 
be  stopped.  "What  you  openin'  winders  for,  a  day  like 
this,  coldin'  off  the  room?" 

Tira  reached  out  and  seized  the  woodbine  spray,  cut 


OLD  (ROW  399 

it  savagely  and  then  shut  the  window.  She  came  back 
witli  the  spray  in  her  hand,  took  off  the  stove  cover  and 
thrust  it  in,  twining  and  writhing  as  if  it  had  life  and  re 
belled  against  the  flame. 

"There!"  she  said.  "I  ain't  goin'  to  have  no  vines 
knockin'  at  winders  an'  scarin'  anybody  to  death." 

Then  she  went  into  the  scullery  and  put  the  knife  in  its 
place,  blade  up  in  a  little  frame  over  the  sink,  and  came 
back  into  the  bedroom  where  the  child  was  whimpering. 
She  stayed  there  a  long  time,  and  Tenney  stood  where 
she  left  him,  listening  for  her  crooning  song.  When  it 
began,  as  it  did  presently,  he  gave  a  nod  of  relief  and 
started  moving  about  the  room.  Once  he  went  into  the 
scullery,  and  Tira  heard  him  pumping.  But  when  she 
had  got  the  child  dressed,  and  had  gone  out  there  herself, 
to  prepare  the  vegetables  for  dinner,  she  put  her  hand 
mechanically,  without  looking,  on  the  rack  above  the  sink. 
The  hand  knew  what  it  should  find,  but  it  did  not  find  it. 
The  knife  was  gone.  Tira  stood  a  long  time  looking,  not 
at  the  empty  place,  but  down  at  her  feet.  It  was  not 
alarming  to  miss  the  knife.  It  was  reassuring.  It  was  not 
to  be  believed,  yet  she  must  believe  it.  Tenney  was  taking 
precautions.  He  was  afraid. 

Nan,  halfway  home,  met  Raven.  He  had  been  walking 
up  and  down,  to  meet  her.  Defeat,  he  saw,  with  a  glance 
at  her  face. 

"Yes,"  said  Nan,  coming  up  with  him.  "No  go,  Rookie. 
He  was  civil.  But  he  was  dreadful.  I  don't  know  whether 
I  should  have  known  it,  but  it's  the  way  she  looked  at  him. 
Rookie,  she  was  scared  blue." 

Raven  said  nothing.  He  felt  a  poor  stick  indeed,  to 
have  brought  Nan  into  it  and  given  her  over  to  defeat. 

"Can't  we  walk  a  spell?"  said  she.  "Couldn't  we  take 
the  back  road  to  the  hut  ?  I  do  so  want  to  talk  to  you." 


400  OLD  CROW 

They  turned  back  and  passed  the  Tenneys'  at  a  smart 
pace.  Haven  gave  the  house  a  swift  glance.  He  was 
always  expecting  to  hear  Tira  cry  out,  she  who  never  did 
and  who,  he  knew,  would  endure  torture  like  an  Indian. 
They  turned  into  the  back  road  where  the  track  was 
soft  with  the  latest  snow,  and  came  into  the  woods  again 
opposite  the  hut.  When  they  reached  it  and  Raven  put 
down  his  hand  for  the  key,  Nan  asked : 

"Does  she  come  here  often?" 

"Not  lately,"  he  said,  fitting  the  key  in  the  lock.  "She 
had  rather  a  quiet  time  of  it  while  he  was  lame." 

They  went  in  and  Nan  kept  on  her  coat  while  he  lighted 
the  fire  and  piled  on  brush. 

"Rookie,"  she  said,  when  he  had  it  leaping,  "it's  an 
awful  state  of  things.  The  man's  insane." 

"No,"  said  Raven,  "I  don't  feel  altogether  sure  of 
that.  We're  too  ready  to  call  a  man  insane,  now  there's 
the  fashion  of  keeping  tabs.  Look  at  me.  I  do  something 
outside  the  ordinary — I  kick  over  the  traces — and  Milly 
says  I'm  to  go  to  the  Psychopathic.  Dick  more  than 
half  thinks  so,  too.  Perhaps  I  ought.  Perhaps  most  of 
us  ought.  We  deflect  just  enough  from  what  the  majority 
are  thinking  and  doing  to  warrant  them  in  shutting  us  up. 
No,  I  don't  believe  you  could  call  him  insane." 

They  talked  it  out  from  all  quarters  of  argument.  Nan 
proposed  emergency  activities  and  Raven  supplied  the 
counter  reason,  always,  he  owned,  going  back  to  Tira's 
obstinacy.  Nan  was  game  to  kidnap  the  child,  even  from 
Tira's  arms.  Couldn't  be  done,  Raven  told  her.  Not 
longer  ago  than  yesterday,  Tira  would  have  consented, 
but  now,  he  reminded  her,  Tenney's  crazy  mind  was  on 
him.  Yes,  it  was  a  crazy  mind,  he  owned,  but  Tenney  wras 
not  on  that  account  to  be  pronounced  insane.  He 
couldn't  be  shut  up,  at  least  without  Tira's  concurrence. 


OLD  CROW  401 

And  she  never  would  concur.  She  had,  if  you  could  put  it 
so,  an  insane  determination  equal  in  measure  to  Tenney's 
insane  distrust,  to  keep  the  letter  of  her  word.  Then, 
Nan  argued,  Tira  and  the  child  together  must  go  back 
with  her.  To  Tenney,  used  only  to  the  remote  reaches 
of  his  home,  the  labyrinth  of  city  life  was  impenetrable. 
He  couldn't  possibly  find  them.  He  wouldn't  be  reason 
able  enough,  intelligent  enough,  to  take  even  the  first  step. 
And  Raven  could  stay  here  and  fight  out  the  battle.  Ten 
ney  wouldn't  do  anything  dramatically  silly.  Tira  was 
"'way  off"  in  fearing  that.  He  would  only  fix  Raven 
with  those  unpleasant  eyes  and  ask  if  he  were  saved.  Very 
well,  Raven  agreed.  It  was  worth  trying.  They  must 
catch  the  first  chance  of  seeing  Tira  alone. 

Then,  though  his  mind  was  on  Tira,  it  reverted  to  Anne. 
Again  she  seemed  to  be  inexorably  beside  him,  reminding 
him,  with  that  delicate  touch  of  her  invisible  finger,  that  he 
was  not  thinking  of  her,  not  even  putting  his  attention 
uninterruptedly  on  what  she  had  bidden  him  do :  her 
last  request,  he  seemed  to  hear  her  remonstrating,  half 
sighing  it  to  herself,  as  if  it  were  only  one  more  of  the 
denials  life  had  made  her.  Even  if  he  did  not  agree  with 
her,  in  his  way  of  taking  things  (throwing  away  his 
strength,  persuading  young  men  to  throw  away  theirs, 
that  the  limited  barbarism  called  love  of  country  might 
be  served)  could  he  not  act  for  her,  in  fulfilling  her  rarer 
virtue  of  universal  love? 

"I  tell  you  what,  Nan,"  he  said,  with  a  leap  from  Tira 
to  the  woman  more  potent  now  in  her  unseen  might  than 
she  had  ever  been  when  her  subtle  ways  of  mastery  had 
been  in  action  before  him,  "it's  an  impossible  situation." 

How  did  she  know  he  was  talking,  not  of  Tira  but  of 
Anne?  Yet  she  did  know.  There  had  been  a  moment's 
pause  and  perhaps  her  mind  leaped  with  his. 


402  OLD  OROW 

It  was,  she  agreed,  impossible.  Yet,  after  all,  so  many 
things  weren't,  that  looked  so  at  the  start.  Think  of 
surgery :  the  way  they'd  both  seen  men  made  over.  Well ! 
He  didn't  remind  her  that  they  had  also  seen  a  mountain 
of  men,  if  fate  had  piled  their  bodies  as  high  as  it  was 
piling  the  fame  of  their  endeavor,  who  couldn't  be  made 
over. 

"If  we  refuse  her,"  he  said — and  though  Nan  was  deter 
mined  he  should  make  his  decision  alone,  she  loved  him 
for  the  coupling  of  their  intent — "we  seem  to  repudiate 
her.  And  that's  perfectly  devilish,  with  her  where  she  is." 

It  was  devilish,  Nan  agreed.  Her  part  here  seemed  to 
be  acquiescence  in  his  attitude  of  mind,  going  step  by 
step  with  him  as  he  broke  his  path. 

"And,"  said  Raven,  lapsing  into  a  confidence  he  had 
not  meant  to  make — for  would  Anne  in  her  jealous  pos- 
sessiveness,  allow  him  to  share  one  intimate  thought  about 
her,  especially  with  Nan? — "the  strange  part  of  it  is, 
I  do  seem  to  feel  she's  somewhere.  I  seem  to  feel  she's 
here.  Reminding  me,  you  know,  just  as  a  person  can  by 
looking  at  you,  though  he  doesn't  say  a  word.  Have  you 
felt  that?  Do  you  now?" 

"No,"  said  Nan,  with  her  uncalculated  decisiveness  that 
made  you  sure  she  was  not  merely  speaking  the  truth  as 
she  saw  it,  but  that  she  did  see  it  clearly.  "I  have  felt 
it,  though,  about  other  people.  About  two  or  three  of 
the  boys  over  there,  you  know.  They  were  the  ones  I  knew 
rather  well.  And  Old  Crow !  up  here,  Rookie,  alone  with 
you,  I  have  that  sense  of  Old  Crow's  being  alive,  very 
much  alive.  Is  it  the  thoughts  he's  left  behind  him,  written 
on  the  air,  or  is  it  really  Old  Crow?" 

"The  air's  been  changed  a  good  many  times  since  he 
was  here,"  said  Raven  lightly.  It  was  not  good  for  little 
girls  to  be  wrestling  forever  with  things  formless  and  dark. 


OLD  CROW  403 

"Oh,"  said  she,  "but  there's  something  left.  Our  minds 
make  pictures.  They  don't  get  rubbed  out.  Why,  I  can 
see  old  Billy  Jones  sitting  here  and  Old  Crow  bandaging 
his  legs,  and  your  mother  and  little  Jack  coming  up  to 
bring  things  in  a  basket.  You  can  say  that's  because  Old 
Crow  told  it  so  vividly  I  can't  get  it  out  of  my  mind.  But 
that  isn't  all.  Things  don't  get  rubbed  out." 


XXXV 

The  next  day  Raven  saw  Termey  driving  by,  probably 
to  the  street  where  all  the  neighbors  went  for  supplies. 
Up  to  this  time  Jerry  had  offered,  whenever  he  was  going, 
to  do  Tira's  "arrants,"  and  Tenney  had  even  allowed  him 
to  bring  home  grain.  Raven  at  once  summoned  Nan.  It 
was  their  chance.  Tira  must  be  taken  by  storm.  Let  her 
leave  the  house  as  it  was  and  run  away.  Nan  hurried  on 
her  things,  and  they  went  up  the  road. 

"There  she  is,"  said  Nan,  "at  the  window." 

Raven,  too,  saw  her  white  face  for  the  moment  before 
it  disappeared.  She  was  coming,  he  thought,  making 
haste  to  let  them  in.  He  knocked  and  waited.  No  one 
came.  He  knocked  again,  sharply,  with  his  stick,  and 
then,  in  the  after  silence,  held  his  breath  to  listen.  It 
seemed  to  him  he  had  never  heard  a  house  so  still.  That 
was  the  way  his  mind  absurdly  put  it :  actively,  ominously 
still. 

"She  was  at  the  window,"  said  Nan,  in  a  tone  that 
sounded  to  him  as  apprehensive  as  the  beating  of  his  own 
heart.  "I  saw  her." 

He  knocked  again  and,  after  another  interval,  the 
window  opened  above  their  heads  and  Tira  leaned  over 
the  sill. 

"You  go  away,"  she  said  quietly,  yet  with  a  thrilling 
npprehension.  "I  can't  let  you  in." 

They  stepped  back  from  the  door  and  looked  up  at  her. 
She  seemed  even  thinner  than  when  Nan  had  seen  her 

404 


OLD  CROW  405 

last,  and  to  Raven  all  the  sorrows  of  woman  were  darkling 
in  the  anguish  of  her  eyes.  He  spoke  quietly,  making  his 
voice  reassuring  to  her. 

"Why  can't  you?     Have  you  been  told  not  to?" 

"No,"  said  Tira,  quick,  he  thought,  to  shield  her  per 
secutor,  "nobody's  said  a  word.  But  they've  gone  off, 
an'  you  can't  be  certain  when  they'll  be  back." 

"Hasn't  he  gone  to  the  street?"  Raven  asked  her,  and 
now  her  voice,  in  its  imploring  hurry,  could  not  urge  him 
earnestly  enough. 

"He  said  he  was  goin'.  You  can't  tell.  He  may  turn 
round  an'  come  back.  An'  I  wouldn't  have  you  here — 
either  o'  you — for  anything  in  this  world." 

But  though  she  said  "either  of  you,"  her  eyes  were  on 
Raven,  beseeching  him  to  go.  He  did  not  answer  that. 
In  a  few  words  he  set  forth  their  plan.  She  was  to  take 
the  child  and  come.  It  was  to  be  now.  But  she  would 
hardly  listen. 

"No,"  she  called,  in  any  pause  between  his  words.  "No ! 
no!  no!" 

"Don't  you  want  to  save  the  child?"  Raven  asked  her 
sternly.  "Have  you  forgotten  what  may  happen  to 
him?" 

She  had  her  answer  ready. 

"It's  his,"  she  said.  "He  spoke  the  truth,  though  it 
wa'n't  as  he  mean  it.  But  the  baby's  his,  an'  baby  as  he  is, 
an'  os  he  is,  he's  got  to  fight  it  out  along  o'  me.  You  go 
now,  an'  don't  you  come  a-nigh  me  ag'in.  An'  if  you  stay 
here  knockin'  at  my  door,  I'll  scream  so's  I  sha'n't  hear 
you." 

She  withdrew  her  head  from  the  window,  but  instantly 
looked  out  again. 

"God  Almighty  bless  you !"  she  said.  "But  you  go ! 
you  go !" 


406  OLD  CROW 

"Tira  !"  called  Raven  sharply,  "don't  you  know  you're  in 
danger?  Don't  you  know  if  anything  happens  to  you 

it'll He  paused,  and  Nan  wondered  if  he  meant 

to  say,  "It  will  break  my  heart!"  and  scarcely  felt  the 
pain  of  it,  she  was  so  tense  with  misery  for  them  both. 

Tira  leaned  out  again  and  seemed  to  bend  even  pro- 
tectingly  toward  them.  She  smiled  at  them,  and  the 
softening  of  her  face  was  exquisite. 

"I  ain't  in  danger,"  she  said.  "I've  said  things  to 
him.  He's  afraid." 

"Threatened  him?"  Raven  asked. 

"I've  kep'  tellin'  him,"  said  Tira,  in  that  same  tone  of 
tender  reasonableness  such  as  mothers  use  when  they 
persuade  children  to  the  necessities  of  things,  "he  must 
remember  we  ain't  alone.  An'  somehow  it  seems  to  scare 
him.  He  don't  see  Him  as  I  do:  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

She  shut  the  window  quietly,  and  Raven  and  Nan  went 
away.  They  walked  soberly  home  without  a  word,  but  when 
Nan  was  taking  off  her  hat  she  heard  bells  and  went  to 
the  library  window.  Raven  was  standing  by  the  table, 
trying  to  find  some  occupation  to  steady  his  anxious  mind. 

"Look !"  said  Nan. 

It  was  Tenney,  and  he  was  "whipping  up." 

"She  knew,  didn't  she?"  commented  Nan,  and  he 
answered : 

"Yes,  she  knew." 

Here  his  trouble  of  mind  broke  forth.  He  had  to  be 
enlightened.  A  woman  must  guess  what  a  woman  thought. 

"I  can't  understand  her,"  he  said.  "I  believe  I  have 
understood  her,  up  to  now.  But  to  say  the  child's  got 
to  bear  it  with  her!  Why,  a  woman's  feeling  about  her 
child!  It's  as  old  as  the  world.  A  woman  will  sacrifice 
herself,  but  she  won't  sacrifice  her  child." 

He  looked  at  her  with  such  trouble  in  his  face  that  Nan 


OLD  CROW  407 

had  to  turn  away.  He  understood  her  too  well.  Could 
he  read  in  her  eyes  what  her  mind  had  resolved  not  to  tell 
him?  Yet  she  would  tell  him.  He  shouldn't  grope  about 
in  the  dark  among  these  mysteries.  She  wanted,  as  much 
as  Old  Crow  wanted  it,  to  be  a  light  to  his  feet. 

"She  would,"  she  told  him  quietly,  "sacrifice  herself  in 
a  minute.  Only  she  can't  do  it  the  way  we've  offered  her, 
because  now  you've  come  into  it." 

"I've  been  in  it  from  the  first,"  frowned  Raven.  "Ever 
since  the  day  I  found  her  up  there  in  the  woods." 

"Yes,  but  then  that  poor  crazy  idiot  was  jealous  only 
of  him,  the  creature  that  sat  down  by  her  at  prayer-meet 
ing;  and  now  he's  jealous  of  you.  And  she's  saving  you, 
Rookie.  At  any  risk.  Even  her  own  child." 

Nan  thought  she  could  add  what  had  been  in  her  mind, 
keeping  time  to  every  step  of  the  way  home:  "For  now  she 
loves  you  better  than  the  child."  But  it  proved  impos 
sible  to  say  that,  and  she  went  out  of  the  room,  not 
looking  at  him,  and  only  waiting  to  put  away  her  hat 
and  coat  in  the  hall.  She  went  upstairs  with  the  same 
unhurried  step  and  shut  the  door  of  her  room  behind  her. 
She  stood  there  near  the  door,  as  if  she  were  guarding  it 
against  even  the  thoughts  of  any  human  creature.  They 
must  not  get  at  her,  those  compassionate  thoughts,  not 
Charlotte's,  certainly  not  Raven's.  For  at  that  moment 
Nan  found  herself  a  little  absurd,  as  many  a  woman  has 
who  knows  herself  to  be  starving  for  a  man's  love.  She 
began  to  tremble,  and  remembered  Tira  shaking  there  by 
the  door  that  morning  that  seemed  now  years  away.  The 
tremor  got  hold  of  her  savagely  and  shook  her.  It  might 
have  been  shaking  her  in  its  teeth. 

"Nervous  chill !"  said  Nan  to  herself,  insisting  on  saying 
it  aloud  to  see  if  her  teeth  would  actually  chatter  and 
finding  they  did.  She  had  seen  plenty  of  such  nervous 


408  OLD  CROW 

whirlwinds  among  her  boys  and  helped  to  quiet  them. 
"I'm  an  interesting  specimen,"  chattered  Nan.  "Talk 
about  cafard!" 

All  that  forenoon,  Dick  fretted  about  the  house,  waiting 
for  her,  hoping  she  would  go  to  walk,  let  him  read  to 
her — Dick  had  a  persistent  habit  of  reading  verse  to  you 
when  he  found  you  weren't  likely  to  get  into  the  modern 
movement  by  yourself — but  no  Nan.  At  dinner,  there 
she  was,  rather  talkative,  in  a  way  that  took  Amelia  into 
the  circle  of  intimacy,  and  seemed  to  link  up  everybody 
with  everybody  else  in  a  nice  manner.  Nan  had  the 
deftest  social  sense,  when  she  troubled  herself  to  use  it. 
Aunt  Anne  would  have  been  proud  of  her. 


XXXVI 

Then  everything,  so  far  as  Raven  and  Nan  were  con 
cerned,  quieted  to  an  unbroken  commonplace,  and  the 
four — for  Amelia  and  Dick  held  to  their  purpose  of 
"standing  by" — again  settled  down  to  country  life,  full 
of  the  amenities  and  personal  abnegations  of  a  house  party 
likely  to  be  continued.  Charlotte  was  delighted,  in  her 
brooding  way,  and  ascribed  the  emotion  to  Jerry  who, 
she  said,  "liked  somethin'  goin'  on."  Nan  and  Dick  had 
vaulted  back  to  their  past:  the  old  terms  of  a  boy  and 
girl  intimacy  in  robust  pursuits  admitting  much  laughter 
and  homespun  talk.  They  went  snowshoeing  over  the 
hills,  Raven,  though  Nan  begged  him  to  come,  electing 
to  stay  at  home  with  Amelia,  who  would  stand  at  the  door 
to  see  them  off,  half  persuaded  she  was  up  to  going  her 
self  and,  indeed,  almost  feeling  she  had  gone,  after  con 
sidering  it  so  exhaustively,  and  then  retreating  to  the 
library  where  she  was  cramming  for  next  year's  economics. 
Raven  was  very  good  to  her.  He  would  sit  down  by  the 
blazing  hearth,  listening  with  an  outward  interest  to  her 
acquired  formulae  of  life,  and  then,  after  perfunctory 
assent  or  lax  denial,  retire  to  his  own  seclusion  over  a 
book.  But  he  seldom  read  nowadays.  He  merely,  in  this 
semblance  of  studious  absorption,  found  refuge  from 
Amelia.  He  was  mortally  anxious  for  Tira,  still  face  to 
face  with  brute  irresponsibility,  and  when  the  mental  pic 
ture  of  it  flamed  too  lividly  and  could  not  be  endured, 
he  threw  down  his  book  and  hurried  up  to  the  hut,  to 

409 


410  OLD  CROW 

find  her.  She  never  came.  The  fire,  faithfully  laid  for 
her,  was  unlighted.  The  room  breathed  the  loneliness  of 
a  place  that  has  known  a  beloved  presence  and  knows  it 
no  more.  Nearly  every  day  he  and  Nan  had  a  word  about 
her,  and  often  he  saw  Nan  going  "up  along"  and  knew 
she  was,  in  the  uneasiness  of  no  news,  bent  on  walking 
past  the  house,  if  only  for  a  glance  at  the  windows  and 
the  sight  of  Tira's  face.  Three  times  within  a  few  weeks 
Tenney  had  driven  past,  and  each  time  Nan,  refusing 
Dick's  company,  hurried  up  the  road.  But  she  came  back 
puzzled  and  dispirited,  and  called  to  Raven,  who,  in  a 
fever  of  impatience,  had  gone  out  to  meet  her: 

"No.     The  door  is  locked." 

She  would  put  a  hand  on  his  arm  and  they  would  walk 
together  while  she  told  him  her  unvarying  tale.  When  she 
had  knocked  persistently,  Tira  would  appear  at  the  cham 
ber  window,  and  shake  her  head,  and  her  lips  seemed  to  be 
saying,  "No !  no !  no  !"  And  each  time  Tenney  returned 
shortly,  and  they  were  sure  his  going  was  a  blind.  He 
never  went  to  the  street,  and  even  Charlotte  remarked 
the  strangeness  of  his  short  absences. 

"What  under  the  sun  makes  Isr'cl  Tenney  start  out  an' 
turn  round  an'  come  back  ag'in?"  she  inquired  of  Jerry. 
"He  ain't  gone  twenty  minutes  'fore  he's  home." 

Jerry  didn't  know.     He  "  'sposed  Isr'el  forgot  suthin'." 

How  was  Tira?  Raven  asked  after  Nan  had  seen  her  at 
the  window,  and  she  did  not  spare  him.  Pale,  she  said, 
paler  than  ever,  a  shadow  of  herself.  But  Nan  had  faith 
that  her  courage  would  hold.  It  was  like  the  winter  and 
the  spring.  Tenney  stood  for  the  forces  of  darkness,  but 
the  spring  had  to  come  in  the  end.  Also  she  owned  that 
her  great  reason  for  believing  in  Tira's  endurance  was 
that  Tira  was  not  alone.  She  had,  like  Old  Crow,  her  sus 
taining  symbol.  She  had,  whatever  the  terrifying  circum- 


OLD  ruo\v  411 

stance  of  her  daily  life,  divine  companionship.  She  had 
her  Lord,  Jesus  Christ. 

"I  believe,"  said  Raven  abruptly,  one  day  when  they 
were  tramping  the  snowy  road  and  she  was  answering 
the  panic  of  his  apprehensive  mind,  "you  swear  by  Old 
Crow's  book." 

"I  do,"  said  Nan  simply,  "seem  to  be  hanging  on  to 
Old  Crow.  I've  read  it  over  and  over.  And  it  does  some 
how  get  me.  Picture  writing !  And  human  beings  drawing 
the  lines  and  half  the  time  not  getting  them  straight!  But 
if  there's  something  to  draw,  I  don't  care  how  bad  the 
drawing  is.  If  there's  actually  something  there!  There 
is,  'Rookie.  Tira's  got  hold  of  it  because  she's  pure  in 
heart.  It's  something  real,  and  it'll  see  her  through." 

Raven  was  not  content  with  its  seeing  her  through 
until  he  could  be  told  what  the  appointed  end  was  likely 
to  be.  If  Tira  was  to  fight  this  desperate  battle  all  her 
mortal  life,  he  wasn't  to  be  placated  by  the  rewarding  cer 
tainty  of  a  heavenly  refuge  at  the  end. 

"I  can  never,"  he  said,  "get  over  the  monstrous  queer- 
ness  of  it  all.  Here's  a  woman  that's  got  to  be  saved,  and 
she's  so  infernally  obstinate  we  can't  save  her.  When  I 
think  of  it  at  night,  I  swear  I'm  a  fool  not  to  complain 
of  the  fellow  in  spite  of  her,  and  then  in  the  morning  I 
know  it  can't  be  done.  She'd  block  me,  and  I  should  only 
have  got  her  in  for  something  worse  than  she's  in  for 
now." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan,  "she'd  block  you.  Wait,  Rookie. 
Something  will  happen.  Something  always  does." 

Yes,  Raven  thought,  something  always  does,  and  some 
times,  in  country  tragedies,  so  brutal  a  thing  that  the 
remorseful  mind  shudders  at  itself  for  not  preventing  it. 
But  Nan,  equably  as  she  might  counsel  him,  was  herself 
apprehensive.  She  expected  something.  She  had  a  sense 


412  OLD  CROW 

of  waiting  for  it.  Dick  must  be  prepared.  He  must  be 
found  on  their  side.  Whatever  the  outcome,  Raven  must 
not  suffer  the  distrust  and  censure  of  his  own  house. 

Dick  had  been  reading  to  her  by  the  fire  while  Raven 
was  taking  Amelia  for  a  sober  walk.  Nan  wished  Dick 
wouldn't  read  his  verse  to  her.  It  made  her  sorry  for  him. 
What  was  he  doing,  a  fellow  who  had  seen  such  things, 
met  life  and  death  at  their  crimson  flood,  pottering  about 
in  these  bizarre  commonplaces  of  a  literary  jog-trot? 
They  sounded  right  enough,  if  you  stood  for  that  kind 
of  thing,  but  they  betrayed  him,  his  defective  imagina 
tion,  his  straining  mind.  He  didn't  see  the  earth  as  it 
was.  He  was  so  enamored  of  metaphorical  indirection  that 
he  tried  to  see  everything  in  the  terms  of  something  else. 
But  to-day  she  had  her  own  thoughts.  She  sat  staring 
into  the  fire,  her  cheeks  burned  by  the  leaping  heat,  and 
Dick,  looking  up  at  her,  stopped  on  an  uncompleted  line. 

"You  haven't,"  he  said,  "heard  a  word." 

"Not  much  of  it,"  said  Nan.  She  looked  at  him  dis- 
armingly.  When  her  eyes  were  like  that,  Dick's  heart  was 
as  water.  "I  was  thinking  about  Tira." 

He  had  to  place  this.     Who  was  Tira? 

"Oh,"  said  he,  "the  Tenney  woman.  Jack  needn't  have 
dragged  you  into  that.  It's  a  dirty  country  story." 

"Not  dirty,"  said  Nan.  "You'd  love  it  if  you'd  thought 
of  it  yourself.  You'd  write  a  play  about  it." 

Dick  frowned. 

"Well,  I  didn't  think  of  it,"  said  he,  "and  if  I  had,  I 
shouldn't  be  eating  and  sleeping  it  as  you  and  Jack  are. 
Whatever's  happening  up  there,  it  isn't  our  hunt.  It's 
hers,  the  woman's.  Or  the  authorities'.  The  man  ought 
to  be  shut  up." 

Nan  began  telling  him  how  it  all  was,  how  they  wanted 
definitely  to  do  the  right  thing  and  how  Tira  herself 


OLD  CROW  413 

blocked  them.  Dick  listened,  commended  the  drama  of 
it,  and  yet  found  it  drama  only. 

"But  it's  a  beastly  shame,"  he  commented,  "to  have 
this  come  on  Jack  just  now  when  he  isn't  fit." 

Nan  had  her  sudden  hot  angers. 

"Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,"  she  countered,  "you  believe 
that  now,  now  you've  lived  with  him  and  seen  he's  exactly 
what  he  used  to  be,  only  more  darling — you  believe  he's 
broken,  dotty?  Heavens!  I  don't  know  what  you'd 
call  it." 

Dick  did  not  answer.  He  scarcely  heard.  One  word 
only  hit  him  like  a  shot  and  drew  blood. 

"Stop  that!"  he  ordered. 

They  faced  each  other  with  eyes  either  angry  or  full  of 
a  tumultuous  passion  an  onlooker  would  have  been  puz 
zled  to  name. 

"Stop  what?" 

"Calling  him  darling.     I  won't  have  it." 

Nan  found  this  truly  funny,  and  broke  into  a  laugh. 

"Do  you  know,"  she  said,  "how  every  talk  of  ours  ends  ? 
Rookie!  It  always  comes  round  to  him.  I  call  him  dar 
ling  and  you  won't  have  it.  But  you'll  have  to." 

"No,"  said  Dick,  "I  won't  have  it.  Put  that  in  your 
pipe  and  smoke  it.  You  little  devil !  I  believe  you  do  it 
to  work  me  up.  That's  all  right  if  it  stopped  there.  But 
it  won't.  Some  day  he'll  hear  you  and  then !" 

She  was  flaming  again. 

"Hear  me?  Hear  me  call  him  darling?  Why,  he's 
heard  it  so  often  it's  no  more  to  him  than  your  calling*  him 
Jack.  But  if  he  asked  me  what  I  meant  by  it !  do  you 
know  what  would  happen  then?" 

"What  would?" 

"Then,"   said   Nan   enigmatically,   "I   should   tell  him, 


414  OLD  CROW 

She  would  say  no  more,  though  he  hurled  questions  at 
her,  and  hardly  remembered  afterward  what  they  were. 
He  was  of  an  impression  that  he  begged  her  to  love  him, 
to  marry  him,  though  Dick,  prodigal  as  he  was  of  great 
words  in  his  verse,  scarcely  believed  he  used  them  in  the 
direct  address  of  love-making.  But  certainly  he  did  beg1 
her,  and  Nan  was  gentle  with  him,  though  always,  like 
Tira,  as  she  remembered  afterward,  repeating,  "No !  no !" 
At  the  end,  his  passion  softened  into  something  appealing, 
as  if  they  were  together  considering  the  sad  case  he  found 
himself  in  and  he  depended  on  her  to  help  him  through. 

"Nan,"  he  said,  in  the  boyish  way  she  loved,  "don't  you 
see  it's  got  to  be  in  the  end  ?  We've  always  been  together, 
We're  always  going  to  be.  Don't  you  see,  old  Nan?" 

Nan  smiled  at  him,  brilliantly,  cruelly,  he  thought. 
But  she  was  sorry  for  him,  and  it  was  only  a  show  of 
cruelty.  It  came  out  of  her  kindness,  really.  Dick 
mustn't  suffer  so  for  want  of  her.  Bully  him,  abuse  him, 
anything  to  anger  him  and  keep  him  from  sheer  weak, 
unavailing  regret.  Nan  had  a  great  idea  of  what  men 
should  be:  "tough  as  a  knot,"  she  thought,  seasoned  all 
through.  If  they  whimpered,  she  was  aghast. 

"No,"  she  said  again,  with  the  brilliant  smile,  "no! 
no !  I  can't.  I  won't.  Not  unless" — and  this,  too,  was 
calculated  cruelty — "unless  Rookie  tells  me  to." 

They  sat  staring  at  each  other  as  if  each  wondered 
what  the  outcome  was  to  be.  Nan  was  excitedly  ready  for 
it.  Or  had  the  last  word  been  actually  said?  But  Dick 
altogether  surprised  her.  He  got  up  and  stood  looking 
down  at  her  in  a  dignity  she  found  new  to  him. 

"When  you  come  to  me,"  he  said,  "you'll  come  because 
I  ask  you.  It  won't  be  because  any  other  man  tells 
you  to." 

He  walked  past  her,  out  of  the  room.     Did  he,  Nan 


OLD  CROW  415 

wondered,  in  her  ingenuous  surprise,  look  a  very  little  like 
Rookie?  When  he  was  twenty  years  older,  was  he  going 
to  look  as  Rookie  did  now?  His  expression,  that  is.  For, 
after  all,  there  was  Dick's  nose. 

And  in  these  da,ys  what  of  Tira?  She,  too,  was  on  an 
edge  of  nervous  apprehension.  Tenney  was  about  the 
house  a  great  deal.  He  still  made  much  of  his  lameness, 
though  never  in  words.  Every  step  he  took  seemed  an  im 
plication  that  a  cane  was  far  from  sufficient.  He  needed 
his  crutch.  And  as  the  period  of  his  silence  lengthened, 
Tira  was  driven  by  her  fear  to  another  greater  fear :  that 
she  might  mention  it  herself.  What  if  she  should  tell  him 
how  the  crutch,  leaning  there  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  had 
seemed  to  her  a  weapon,  not  a  crutch?  What  if  she 
appealed  to  his  pity  and  even  played  a  part  with  him, 
dwelling  on  her  woman's  weakness  of  nature,  her  tremors, 
deprived  of  the  protection  that  should  be  hers?  Artifice 
was  foreign  to  her.  Yet  what  was  there,  short  of  impli 
cating  Raven,  she  would  not  do  for  the  child?  But  a 
glance  at  Tenney's  face,  the  tightness  of  reserve,  the 
fanatical  eyes,  closed  her  lips,  and  they  moved  about  to 
gether  dumbly  at  their  common  tasks.  As  she  grew  paler 
and  the  outline  of  her  cheek  the  purer  over  the  bones 
beneath,  he  watched  her  the  more  intently,  but  still  fur 
tively.  One  forenoon  when  the  sky  was  gray  and  a  soft 
snow  fell  in  great  flakes  that  melted  as  they  came,  he  went 
haltingly  up  to  the  shed  chamber  and  came  down  with 
his  gun.  He  was  not  a  huntsman,  and  when  they  moved 
into  the  house  it  had  been  left  there  with  a  disorder  of 
things  not  likely  to  be  needed.  He  drew  a  chair  to  the 
table  and  then  addressed  her  almost  urbanely.  He  wanted, 
she  guessed,  to  call  her  attention  in  some  explicit  wav. 
"You  git  me  some  kind  of  a  rag,"  he  bade  her.  "I'm 
goin'  to  clean  up  this  old  musket.  You  might's  well  hand 


416  OLD  CROW 

me  that  oiler,  too,  off' n  the  sink  shelf.  I  can't  git  about 
any  too  well." 

She  brought  him  the  cloth  and  the  oiler  and  went  away 
to  the  sink  again,  determined  not  to  be  drawn  into  any 
uneasiness  of  questioning.  But  it  fascinated  her,  the 
sight  of  him  bending  to  his  task,  and  her  will  weakened. 
In  spite  of  herself,  she  went  over  to  the  table  and  stood 
looking  down  at  him.  Presently  he  glanced  up  at  her  and 
smiled  a  little  in  a  way  she  did  not  like.  It  seemed  to 
imply  some  recognition  of  a  common  knowledge  between 
them.  He  had,  the  look  said,  more  than  the  apparent 
reason  for  what  he  was  doing.  The  oiling  of  the  gun  was 
not  all.  Something1  at  the  back  of  his  mind  was  more 
significant  than  this  act  of  his  hands,  and  this  something, 
the  look  said,  she  also  knew.  All  through  the  moment 
of  her  gazing  down  at  him  Tira  was  telling  herself  she 
must  not  speak.  Yet  she  spoke: 

"You  goin'  gunnin'?" 

"I  dunno  but  I  be,"  he  returned,  his  eyes  again  on  his 
work.  "I've  had  it  in  mind  quite  a  spell,  an'  I  dunno's 
there's  any  reason  for  puttin'  on't  off." 

"What  you  goin'  after,  Isr'el?"  she  asked,  against  her 
will,  and  he  was  silent  for  what  seemed  so  long,  that  she 
pursued:  "You  goin'  rabbitin'?" 

"No,"  said  Tenney.  "I  dunno's  I  be.  What's  the  use 
o'  shootin'  down  four-footed  creatur's?  T'other  ones'll 
do  well  enough  for  me." 

Again  he  glanced  up  at  her  and  her  look  of  frozen 
horror  evidently  warned  him  against  terrifying  her  unduly. 
She  must  be  shaken  enough  to  obey  him,  not  to  fight. 

"You  look  kinder  peaked,"  he  said,  with  what  she 
found  a  false  air  of  interest.  "You  don't  git  out  enough. 
Mebbe  you'd  ought  to  git  out  nights.  I've  been  noticin' 
how  peaked  you  look,  an'  I  thought  mebbe  I'd  git  the  old 


OLD  CROW  417 

musket  loaded  up  an'  go  out  an'  shoot  ye  a  pa'tridge. 
Tempt  your  appetite,  mebbe,  a  mite  o'  the  breast." 

"I  dunno,"  said  Tira,  speaking  with  difficulty  through 
her  rigid  misery,  "as  you'd  ought  to,  so  near  nestin' 
time.  I  dunno's  as  it's  the  season  to  kill." 

"All  seasons  are  the  same  to  me,"  said  Tenney.  "When 
it's  time  to  kill,  then  kill,  I  say.  Kill !" 

He  spoke  the  word  as  if  he  loved  it,  and  Tira  walked 
away  from  him  into  the  bedroom,  and  stretched  herself 
on  the  bed,  her  hand  on  the  sleeping  child.  When  it  was 
time  to  get  dinner  she  came  out  again  and  found  him 
reading  his  paper  by  the  stove.  He  had  set  the  gun  away 
in  a  corner.  But  directly  after  dinner  he  shaved  at  the 
little  glass  by  the  kitchen  window  and  told  her,  again 
with  the  air  of  abundant  explanation  she  found  foreign 
to  him,  that  he  was  going  to  the  street,  to  get  the  colt 
shod.  The  colt  did  need  to  be  shod.  She  knew  that. 
Perhaps  this  time  he  was  actually  going. 

"You  want  to  take  along  the  eggs?"  she  said,  and  *he 
assented. 

He  asked  her,  too,  for  a  list  of  groceries  she  needed. 
He  would  have  to  wait  his  turn  at  the  blacksmith's.  He 
might  be  a  long  time.  She  need  not  expect  him  before 
dark.  She  might  as  well  go  out,  he  told  her,  Tand  again : 

"You're  lookin'  peaked.     You  need  the  air." 

She  heard  him  drive  briskly  out  of  the  yard,  but  she 
would  not,  for  some  reason  she  did  not  herself  know,  go 
to  the  window  to  look  after  him.  It  was  all  a  plan,  she 
told  herself.  She  was  not  to  be  taken  in  by  it.  She 
would  force  herself  to  sit  down  to  her  sewing.  She  would 
not  leave  the  house  while  he  was  gone.  If  he  wanted  to 
tempt  her  out,  to  trap  her,  let  him  have  his  will.  It  was 
better,  she  thought,  with  a  moment's  satirical  comment,  for 
him  to  be  driving  off  on  a  fictitious  mission  than  roaming 


418  OLD  CROW 

the  neighborhood  with  a  gun  in  his  hand.  She  glanced 
involuntarily  at  the  corner  where  the  gun  had  stood  not 
many  minutes  before  he  left  the  house.  It  was  gone. 
Then  she  knew.  She  threw  down  her  work,  went  to  the 
telephone,  and  called  Raven.  He  was  there,  and  she  felt 
her  heart  answer  wildly  when,  at  her  first  word,  he  broke 
in: 

"Is  it  you?"  Not  her  name,  only  the  intimacy  of  the 
significant  word.  "The  hut?"  he  added. 

"Up  there,"  said  Tira,  breathless.  "Both  of  you.  I've 
got  to  see  you  both.  Come  quick." 

She  got  her  cloak  and  threw  it  down  again,  remember 
ing  it  was  what  she  was  used  to  wearing  and  that  Tenney 
would  most  certainly  recognize  her  outline  in  it,  even 
though  a  long  way  off.  Grandmother  Tenney's  black  blan 
ket  shawl  was  in  the  parlor  chest  of  drawers,  that  and  her 
hood,  disfiguring  ancientry  of  dress.  She  ran  into  the 
parlor,  snatched  them  out,  tied  on  the  black  knitted  hood 
and,  not  unfolding  the  shawl,  wrapped  it  about  her 
shoulders.  The  baby  was  in  his  cradle,  and  she  gave  him 
one  glance.  If  he  waked,  he  would  cry.  Let  him  cry. 
But  she  did  lock  the  door  behind  her,  and  put  the  key 
on  the  sill,  a  place  Tenney  would  know.  Half  way  down 
the  path,  she  went  back,  took  the  key  again  and  dropped 
it  into  her  apron  pocket.  Tenney  might  come,  but  he 
should  not  go  into  the  house  and  find  the  child  alone. 
Lest  he  should  come  the  way  he  went,  she  took  the  back 
road,  and  there,  when  she  was  about  to  turn  into  the  wood 
road,  she  heard  sleigh-bells  behind  her,  the  horse  going,  as 
her  ear  told  her,  "step  and  step."  But  she  was  actually 
on  the  wood  road  when  the  driver  whipped  up  and  the 
bells  came  dashingly.  She  did  not  turn  to  look.  It  was 
not  Tenney.  She  would  have  known  his  bells.  The  horse 
drew  up,  the  driver  called  to  him  a  peremptory  and  jovial 


OLD  CROW  419 

word,  and  she  knew  the  voice.  It  was  Eugene  Martin's, 
and  instinct  told  her  to  stop  and  face  him.  He  stepped 
out  of  the  sleigh  and  threw  the  robe,  with  a  quick  motion, 
over  the  horse.  Then  he  came  on  to  her,  smiling,  effusively 
cordial,  and  Tira  waited.  A  pace  away  he  took  off  his 
hat  and  made  her  an  exaggerated  bow.  He  was  carefully 
dressed,  but  then  he  was  always  that,  according  to  his 
lights.  Only  Tira,  who  knew  him  so  well,  all  his  vain 
schemes  of  personal  fitness,  judged  this  to  be  a  day  of 
especial  preparation.  For  what?  He  took  the  step  be 
tween  them  and  put  out  both  hands. 

"If  this  ain't  luck!"  he  beamed.  "How  are  you,  girl? 
I  made  up  my  mind  I'd  see  you,  but  I  hadn't  an  idea  you'd 
be  on  the  road." 

Tira  rolled  her  hands-  in  her  apron,  as  if  they  were 
cold.  His  extended  hands  she  did  not  seem  to  see. 

"I  ain't  waitin'  for  you,"  she  said  quietly,  her  eyes  on 
his.  "You  better  go  right  straight  along  about  your  busi 
ness  an'  leave  me  to  mine." 

"I  ain't  done  right,  Tira,"  said  Martin,  with  the  spe 
cious  warmth  she  knew.  "I  did  try  to  git  you  in  bad  with 
Tenney,  but  don't  you  know  what  that  sprung  from? 
I'm  jealous  as  the  devil.  Don't  you  know  I  be?" 

"You've  no  call  to  be  jealous  nor  anything  else,"  said 
Tira  steadily.  "You  an'  me  are  as  fur  apart" — she  hesi 
tated  for  a  word,  and  her  eyes  rested  for  a  moment  on 
one  of  the  tall  evergreens  moving  slightly  in  the  breeze. 
"We  couldn't  any  more  come  together  than  I  could  climb 
up  to  the  pick  o'  that  pine  tree." 

He  still  regarded  her  solicitously.  He  was  determined 
not  to  abandon  his  part. 

"Ain't  somebody  come  betwixt  us  ?"  he  demanded,  with 
that  vibration  of  the  voice  once  so  moving  to  her.  "You 
can't  deny  it.  Can  you  now?" 


420  OLD  CROW 

"Nobody's  come  betwixt  us,"  said  Tira.  "If  you  was 
the  only  man  on  this  earth  to-day,  I'd  run  from  you  as  I 
would  a  snake.  I  hate  you.  No,  I  don't.  I  look  on  you 
as  if  you  was  the  dirt  under  my  feet." 

But  as  she  said  it  she  glanced  down,  wistfully  troubled, 
as  if  she  begged  forgiveness  of  the  good  earth.  The  quick 
anger  she  knew  in  him  flared  like  a  licking  flame.  He 
threw  his  arms  about  her  and  held  her  to  him  as  tightly, 
it  seemed  to  her,  as  if  he  were  hostile  to  the  very  breath 
within  her  body.  And  she  was  still,  not  only  because  he 
gripped  her  so  but  because  she  had  called  upon  that  ter 
rible  endurance  women  recognize  within  themselves.  He 
kissed  her,  angry,  insulting  kisses  she  could  bear  more 
patiently  than  the  kisses  of  unwelcome  love.  But  as 
his  lips  defiled  her  face,  he  was  suddenly  aware  that  it  was 
wet.  Great  tears  were  rolling  down  her  cheeks.  He 
laughed. 

"Cryin'?"  he  jeered.  "Poor  little  cry-baby!  wipe  her 
eyes." 

While  he  held  her  with  one  arm,  the  other  hand  plunged 
into  her  apron  pocket  and  brought  out  her  handkerchief. 
It  also  touched  the  key.  His  instincts,  she  knew,  had  a 
scope  of  devilish  cunning,  and  at  once  he  knew  what  key 
it  was.  He  laughed.  Looking  off  through  the  trees,  he 
had  seen  what  gave  him  another  clue. 

"Smoke!"  he  called,  as  if  he  shouted  it  to  an  unseen 
listener  who  might  not  have  been  clever  enough  to  guess. 
"Smoke  from  that  shack  Raven  lazes  round  in  same  as 
Old  Crow  did  afore  him.  That's  where  you  were  goin'. 
The  wood  road  all  broke  out  for  you.  I  might  ha' 
known  it  when  I  see  that.  Go  along,  my  lady.  He'll  be 
there  waitin'  for  you.  Go  along.  But  jest  for  the  fun  o' 
the  thing,  you  leave  the  key  with  me." 

She  answered  with  a  desperate  wrench;  but  though  one 


OLD  CROW  421 

of  her  hands  reached  the  pocket  where  the  key  lay,  she 
could  only  twitch  the  fingers,  and  while  he  laughed  softly 
he  pulled  the  tie  of  her  apron  and,  releasing  her  wiih  a 
little  push,  snatched  the  apron  from  her,  rolled  it  and 
thrust  it  into  his  pocket.  She  sprang  at  him,  but  he  gave 
her  another  push  that  sent  her  staggering  and  ran 
laughing  to  the  sleigh. 

"So  long!"  he  called  back  at  her. 

She  recovered  herself  and  started  after  him.  But  the 
horse  plunged  forward  and  Martin  was  shouting  at  her 
jovially,  in  what  words  she  did  not  hear.  She  only  knew, 
through  the  bewilderment  of  her  despair,  that  the  tone 
was  merciless. 

She  stood  there  a  moment,  looking  after  him,  and  real 
izing  that  he  had  forced  her  into  a  corner  from  which 
there  was  no  possible  way  out.  But  then  another  fear 
beat  in  her  numbed  brain.  She  had  not  accomplished  the 
task  for  which  she  came  here.  Martin  and  his  trick  must 
wait.  That  other  need  was  more  important.  There  was 
the  hut  and  its  welcoming  smoke  and  there  Raven  must  be 
looking  for  her.  She  started  running  along  the  snowy 
path,  reached  the  door,  found  it  unlocked  and  went  in. 


XXXVII 

Raven,  as  soon  as  he  had  Tira's  message,  went  to  find 
Nan.  She  was  not  in  her  room,  but  Charlotte,  when  he 
finally  brought  up  at  the  kitchen,  told  him  Nan  and  Dick 
had  gone  to  walk.  Down  the  road,  she  said.  They  had 
called  to  him,  but  he  was  in  the  barn. 

"Then,"  said  Raven,  getting  into  his  jacket,  "see  her 
the  minute  she  comes  back  and  send  her  up  to  the  hut." 

Yes,  Charlotte  meant  to  be  in  the  kitchen  all  the  after 
noon.  She  would  see  Nan.  Raven  left  the  house  and  hur 
ried  up  the  hill.  He  found  the  hut  in  order,  the  fire  laid 
as  he  had  left  it.  That  was,  foolishly,  always  a  surprise. 
Her  presence  hung  so  inevitably  about  the  place  that  he 
was  taken  aback  to  find  no  visible  sign  of  it.  Now  when 
she  appeared  it  was  breathlessly,  not,  as  he  thought,  from 
haste,  but  from  her  encounter  with  Martin.  And  she  came 
stripped  of  her  reserves,  the  decorum  of  respectful  observ 
ance  she  always  kept  toward  him.  At  first  glance  he  was 
shocked  by  the  change  in  her  appearance  and  could  not 
account  for  it,  not  knowing  he  missed  the  familiar  folds 
of  the  blue  cloak  about  her,  not  seeing  that  her  black 
shawl  and  the  knitted  hood  accentuated  the  tragic  pale 
ness  of  her  face.  She  came  straight  to  him  and  he  took 
her  hands  and,  finding  them  so  cold,  held  them  in  one  of 
his  and  chafed  them.  This  she  did  not  notice.  She 
neither  knew  that  they  were  cold  nor  that  he  was  holding 
them. 

"You  must  go  away,"  she  said,  surprising  him  because 

422 


OLD  CROW 

he  thought  she  had  come  to  say  she  herself  was  ready  to 
go.  "Where  is  she?"  Tira  asked,  with  a  quick  glance 
about  the  room,  as  if  the  least  deviation  in  her  plan 
fretted  her  desperately.  "I  depended  on  seein'  her." 

"Nan?"  asked  Raven.  "I  couldn't  find  her.  What  is  it, 
Tira?" 

"She'd  ha'  helped  me  out,"  said  Tira  despairingly. 
"She'd  ha'  seen  you've  got  to  go  away  from  here  an' 
go  quick.  Couldn't  you  pack  up  an'  git  off  by  the  nine 
o'clock?" 

"Don't  be  foolish,"  said  Raven.  He  released  her  hands 
and  drew  a  chair  nearer  the  fire.  "Sit  down.  I  haven't 
the  least  idea  of  going  anywhere.  Do  you  suppose  I 
should  go  and  leave  you  in  danger?" 

But  she  did  not  even  seem  to  see  the  chair  he  had  indi 
cated  or  the  fire.  She  stood  wringing  her  hands,  in  a 
regardless  way,  under  her  shawl,  and  looking  at  him  im 
ploringly. 

"I  ain't  in  any  danger,"  she  said,  "not  compared  to 
what  you  be.  He's  stopped  dwellin'  on  that  man  an'  his 
mind  is  on  you." 

The  shame  of  this  did  not  move  her  now.  Her  fear 
had  burned  every  reticence  to  ashes  and  her  heart  looked 
out  nakedly. 

"He's  got  out  the  old  gun,"  she  went  on.  "I  dunno's 
he's  fired  a  gun  sence  we've  been  here  unless  it  might  be  at 
a  hawk  sailin'  over.  He  says  he's  goin'  to  shoot  me  a 
pa'tridge — for  me!  a  pa'tridge  for  me  to  eat! — an'  he 
looked  at  me  when  he  said  it,  an'  the  look  was  enough. 
You  go.  You  go  to-night  an'  put  the  railroad  betwixt 
you  an'  me." 

"Don't  be  foolish,  Tira,"  said  Raven  again.  "I've  been 
in  more  dangerous  places  than  this,  and  run  bigger  risks 
than  Tenney's  old  musket.  That's  all  talk,  what  he  says 


424  OLD  CROW 

to  you,  all  bluff.  I  begin  to  think  he  isn't  equal  to  any 
thing  but  scaring  a  woman  to  death.  "But" — now  he  saw 
his  argument — "I  will  go.  Nan  and  I  will  go  to-night, 
but  only  if  you  go  with  us.  Now  is  your  chance,  Tira. 
Run  back  to  the  house  and  get  the  boy.  Bring  him  here, 
if  you  like,  to  stay  till  train  time  and  then  come." 

He  stretched  out  his  hand  to  her  and  waited,  his  eyes  on 
hers.  Would  she  put  her  hand  into  his  in  obedience,  in 
fealty?  She  began  to  cry,  silently  yet  rendingly.  He 
saw  the  great  breaths  rising  in  her,  and  was  sick  at  heart 
to  see  her  hand — the  hand  she  should  have  laid  in  his — 
clutching  her  throat  to  still  its  agony. 

"I  dunno,"  she  said  brokenly.  "Yes,  I  s'pose  I  do 
know.  I've  got  to  do  it.  It's  been  pushin'  me  an'  pushin' 
me,  an'  now  I've  got  to  give  up  beat.  You  won't  save 
yourself,  an'  somehow  or  another  you've  got  to  be  saved." 

Raven  felt  the  incredible  joy  of  his  triumph.  He  had 
yielded  to  her  obstinacy,  he  had  actually  given  up  hope, 
and  now,  scourged  by  her  devotion  to  him,  she  was  walk 
ing  straight  into  the  security  he  had  urged  upon  her. 
Yet  he  dared  not  betray  his  triumph,  lest  outspoken  emo 
tion  of  any  sort  should  awaken  her  to  a  fear  of — what? 
Of  him?  Of  man's  nature  she  had  learned  to  abhor? 

"That's  right,  Tira,"  he  said  quietly.  "Now  you've 
given  up  responsibility.  You've  put  yourself  and  the  boy 
in  my  hands,  mine  and  Nan's.  You've  promised,  remem 
ber.  There's  no  going  back." 

Still  he  held  out  his  hand,  and  though  she  ignored  it, 
her  dumbly  agonized  look  was  aware  of  it.  It  was  waiting1 
for  her,  the  authoritative,  kind  hand,  and  she  took  hers 
from  her  throat  and  laid  it  in  his  grasp.  Tira  seemed  to 
herself  to  be  giving  up  something  she  had  been  fighting  to 
keep.  What  was  she  giving  up  ?  Nothing  it  was  right  to 
keep,  she  would  have  said.  For  at  that  minute,  as  it  had 


OLD  CROW  425 

been  in  all  the  minutes  that  led  to  it,  she  believed  in  him  as 
she  did  in  her  Lord,  Jesus  Christ.  Yet  she  was  aware, 
with  that  emotional  certainty  which  is  more  piercing  than 
the  keenness  of  the  most  brilliant  mind,  that  she  had  sur 
rendered,  the  inner  heart  of  her,  and  whatever  he  asked 
her  to  do  would  now  be  humbly  done. 

In  the  instant  of  their  standing  there,  hand  clasped  in 
hand,  the  current  of  life  between  them  rushed  to  mingle 
—humble  adoration  in  her,  a  triumphant  certainty  in  him. 
But  scarcely  had  the  impetuous  forces  met  before  they 
were  dissolved  and  lost.  The  sharp  crack  of  a  gun  broke 
the  stillness  outside,  and  Tira  tore  her  hand  from  his  and 
screamed  piercingly.  She  threw  herself  upon  Raven, 
holding  him  with  both  hands. 

"Hear  that !"  she  whispered.  "It's  right  outside  here. 
He's  shot  to  make  you  come  out  an'  see  what  'tis.  In 
the  name  o'  God,  don't  you  open  the  door." 

Raven  shook  himself  free  from  her,  and  then,  because 
she  was  sobbing  wildly,  took  her  by  the  shoulders  and 
pushed  her  into  the  chair  by  the  hearth. 

"Stop  that,"  he  said  sternly.  "Stay  there  till  I  come 
back." 

He  took  the  key  from  the  lock,  opened  the  door  and 
stepped  out.  There  lay  Dick  on  his  face,  his  head  close 
by  the  door-stone,  and  Tenney,  gun  in  hand,  stood  stup 
idly  staring  at  him. 

"I  shot  at  a  pa'tridge,"  Tenney  babbled,  "I  shot " 

But  Raven  was  kneeling  by  Dick  in  the  reddening  snow. 


XXXVIII 

Eugene  Martin  had  driven  at  a  quick  pace  through  the 
back  road  and  down  again  to  the  point  where  it  met  the 
highway.  He  had  stuffed  Tira's  apron  into  his  pocket, 
and  through  his  passion  he  was  aware  of  it  as  something 
he  could  use,  how  he  did  not  yet  know.  But  the  key : 
that  was  a  weapon  in  itself.  She  could  not  get  into  her 
house  without  it.  Tenney  could  not  get  in.  So  far  as 
Tira  was  concerned,  it  was  lost,  and  Tenney  would  have 
to  be  told.  And  as  he  turned  into  the  other  road,  there 
was  Tenney  himself  driving  toward  home,  and  Martin 
knew  what  he  was  to  do. 

"Hi!"  he  called,  but  Tenney  did  not  stop.  He  drew 
out  slightly  to  the  side  of  the  road,  the  implication  that 
Martin  might  pass.  Martin  drove  up  alongside  and,  the 
way  growing  narrower,  seemed  bent  on  crowding  him. 
The  horses  were  abreast  and  presently  the  road  nar 
rowed  to  a  point  where,  if  they  continued,  one  would  be 
in  the  ditch. 

"I've  got  something  o'  yourn,"  called  Martin.  He  was 
good  humor  itself.  The  chances  of  the  road  had  played 
patly  into  his  hand.  "Anyways,  I  s'pose  'tis.  I  come 
across  your  woman  on  the  back  road.  She  turned  into  the 
loggin'  road,  to  Raven's  shack.  She  dropped  her  apron 
an'  I  picked  it  up.  There's  a  key  in  the  pocket.  Looks 
like  a  key  to  somebody's  outer  door.  Yourn,  ain't  it? 
Here  'tis,  rolled  up  in  the  apron.  Ketch!" 

He  had  taken  out  the  apron,  rolled  it  tighter  and  then, 

426 


OLD  CROW 

as  Tenney  made  no  movement,  tossed  it  into  the  sleigh- 
He  shook  the  reins  and  passed,  narrowly  escaping  an 
over-turn,  but,  at  the  same  moment,  he  was  aware  that 
Tenney  had  stooped  slightly  and  lifted  something.  It 
was  a  familiar  motion.  What  had  he  lifted?  It  could 
not  be  a  gun,  he  told  himself.  Yet  he  knew  it  could  be 
nothing  else.  Was  this  the  next  move  in  the  mad  game? 
For  the  first  time  he  began  to  wonder  whether  Tcnney's 
religion  would  really  keep  him  cool  and  questioned 
whether,  having  neatly  balanced  his  own  account,  he  might 
close  it  now  before  he  found  himself  in  danger.  Driving 
fast,  he  was  aware  that  Tenney,  behind  him,  was  also 
coming  on*  But  he  would  not  look  until  he  had  passed 
Tenney's  house,  and  then  he  did  give  one  backward 
glance.  Tenney  had  turned  into  the  yard,  and  Martin 
relaxed,  satisfied  with  the  day's  job.  Perhaps  it  was  really 
finished,  and  he  and  Tira  were  square. 

Tenney,  having  driven  into  the  yard,  blanketed  the 
horse  and  thrust  the  apron  under  the  seat  of  the  sleigh. 
He  stood  for  a  moment,  thinking.  Should  he  unlock  the 
door,  go  into  the  house,  and  lock  it  against  the  woman 
who  had  run  away  to  Raven's  shack?  He  could  not  think 
clearly,  but  it  did  seem  to  him  best  to  open  the  door  and 
look  about.  How  had  she  left  things  behind  her?  Was 
her  absence  deliberately  planned?  Inside,  he  proceeded 
mechanically  with  the  acts  he  would  ordinarily  have  done 
after  an  absence.  The  familiar  surroundings  seemed  to 
suggest  them  to  him.  He  fitted  the  key  into  the  lock 
again,  took  off  his  great-coat  and  hung  it  up,  chiefly  be 
cause  the  nail  reminded  him,  and  then,  the  house  suddenly 
attacking  him  with  all  the  force  of  lonely  silence,  he 
turned  and  went  out  again  and  shut  the  door  behind  him. 
There  was  the  horse.  Why  had  he  covered  him?  He 
would  naturally  have  unharnessed.  But  then  he  saw  the 


428  OLD  CROW 

gun  in  the  sleigh,  and  that,  like  the  silent  house,  seemed 
to  push  him  on  to  something  he  had  lost  the  power  to 
will,  and  he  took  the  gun  and  walked  fast  out  of  the  yard. 
Now  at  once  he  felt  clear  in  the  head.  He  was  going  to 
find  Raven.  That  was  the  next  step.  Wherever  Raven 
was,  he  must  find  him.  But  when  he  turned  out  of  the 
yard  to  go  up  the  back  road,  he  was  aware  of  a  strange 
dislike  to  coming  upon  him  at  the  hut.  Tira  was  there,  he 
knew,  but  if  Raven  also  was,  then  there  would  be  some 
thing  to  do.  It  was  something  in  the  back  of  his  mind, 
very  dark  and  formless  as  yet,  but  it  was,  he  told  himself 
again,  something  that  had  to  be  done.  Perhaps  after  all, 
even  though  it  was  to  be  done  sometime,  it  need  not  be  to 
day.  Even  though  Tira  was  up  there,  the  job  was  a  ter 
rifying  one  to  tackle  when  he  felt  so  weak  in  his  dis 
abled  foot,  so  cold  after  Martin's  jeering  voice  when  he 
tossed  over  the  key.  He  turned  again  and  went  down 
the  road  to  Raven's.  His  foot  ached  badly,  but  he  did 
not  mind  it  so  much  now,  the  confusion  and  pain  of  his 
mind  had  grown  so  great.  It  seemed,  like  this  doubt  that 
surrounded  Tira,  a  curse  that  was  to  be  always  with  him. 
At  Raven's,  he  went  to  the  kitchen  door  and  knocked,  and 
Charlotte  came. 

"He  to  home?"  he  asked,  not  looking  at  her,  but  stand 
ing  there  a  drooping,  miserable  figure. 

"Jerry?"  she  asked.  "Yes.  He's  in  the  barn,  gone  to 
feed  an'  water." 

"No,"  said  Tenney.     "John  Raven.    Is  he  to  home?" 

"Why,  no,"  said  Charlotte.  "Not  round  the  house. 
He  said  he's  goin'  up  to  the  hut." 

At  that  he  stared  at  her  desperately,  as  if  begging  her 
to  take  back  her  words ;  they  might  have  been  a  command 
to  him,  a  verdict  against  him.  She  stepped  out  a  pace. 

"Why,  Mr.  Tenney,"  she  said,  "what  you  round  with  a 


OLD  CROW  429 

gun  for,  this  time  o'  night?  You  can't  see  nothin'.  It'll 
be  dusk  in  a  minute." 

"Pa'tridges,"  he  called  back  to  her,  adding  darkly,  "I 
guess  I  can  see  well  enough,  come  to  that." 

Charlotte  stood  there  watching  him  out  of  the  yard 
and  noted  that  he  turned  toward  home.  When  Nan  and 
Dick  came  up  the  road  the  other  way,  she  had  gone  in,  and 
they  had  been  in  the  house  five  minutes  or  more  before 
she  knew  of  it.  Then  Dick  wandered  into  the  kitchen,  on 
one  of  the  vague  quests  always  bringing  the  family  there 
in  search  of  her,  and  she  called  to  him  from  the  pantry : 

"D'you  see  anything  of  Isr'el  Tenney  on  the  road?" 

No,  Dick  had  seen  nobody.  He  stood  leaning  against 
the  casing,  watching  her  floury  hands  at  their  deft  work. 

"He  come  here,  not  ten  minutes  ago,"  said  Charlotte, 
"after  your  Uncle  John.  He  had  a  gun.  I  never  see 
Isr'el  Tenney  with  a  gun.  'Pa'tridge  shootin,'  he  said. 
Pa'tridges,  when  you  can't  see  your  hand  afore  you  in  the 
woods !  I  told  him  Uncle  John'd  gone  up  to  the  hut. 
When  Uncle  John  went  off,  he  said  he  wanted  Nan 
should  come  up  there,  quick  as  ever  she  could.  You  tell 
her,  won't  you?  I  forgot." 

Then  Dick  knew.  Tira  was  up  there.  And  Tenney  was 
out  with  a  gun :  New  England  tragedy.  It  was  impos 
sible,  the  sanctimonious  Tenney.  Yet  there  was  New 
England  tragedy,  a  streak  of  it,  darkly  visible,  through 
all  New  England  life.  It  would  be  ridiculous :  old  Tenney 
with  his  prayer-meetings  and  his  wild  appeals.  And  yet, 
he  reflected,  all  tragedy  was  ridiculous  to  the  sane,  and 
saw  before  his  mind's  eye  a  satiric  poem  wherein  he  should 
arraign  the  great  sad  stories  of  the  world  and  prove  their 
ironic  futility.  But  all  this  was  the  hurried  commen 
tary  of  the  mind  really  bent  on  something  actual,  and 
from  that  actuality  he  spoke : 


430  OLD  CROW 

"Don't  tell  Nan,  Charlotte.     I'll  see  what  he  wants." 

He  went  off  and  Charlotte  thought  he  was  right,  the 
afternoon  waning  as  it  was.  She  would  tell  Nan  later,  a 
good  deal  later,  when  Raven  and  Dick  had  had  time  to 
come  down  again.  And  this  was  how  Dick  climbed  the 
slope  and  was  approaching  the  door  of  the  hut  when 
Tenney  stole  behind  him  through  the  dusk  and  fired. 

Raven,  in  the  instant  of  seeing  Dick  there  on  the 
ground,  locked  the  door  of  the  hut,  dropped  the  key  in  his 
pocket,  knelt  by  him  and,  with  a  hand  on  his  pulse, 
snapped  out  his  orders  to  Tenney,  standing  there  star 
ing  vacuously: 

"Go  down  to  the  house.  Get  Jerry  and  the  sled.  Come 
back  with  him.  Get  a  move  on.  Run !" 

Tenney  continued  looking  emptily  at  him,  still  babbling 
about  pa'tridges,  and  Raven  got  up  and  wrenched  the  gun 
from  his  hand,  calling  loudly,  though  they  were  close 
together: 

"Don't  you  hear  me?  Get  Jerry  and  the  sled.  Run, 
man,  run." 

Tenney  started  away  in  a  dazed  indecisiveness  and 
Raven  remembered  his  hurt  and  that  he  probably  could  not 
run.  At  the  same  instant  Tenney's  mind  cleared.  He  was 
plunging  down  the  slope  and,  whatever  anguish  it  caused 
him,  insensible  to  it. 

Raven  unlocked  the  door,  stepped  in  and  found  Tira 
facing  him. 

"Go  home,"  he  said.  "Get  the  boy  and  go  down  to  my 
house.  You're  to  stay  there  now." 

At  the  instant  of  saying  this,  he  set  the  gun  inside  the 
door,  snatched  some  blankets  from  the  bedroom  and  came 
out  again.  Tira  stepped  aside  to  let  him  pass.  It  looked 
as  if  he  would  have  walked  over  her.  He  covered  Dick 
warmly,  picked  up  the  boy's  glasses  from  the  snow  and 


OLD  CROW  431 

dropped  them  into  his  pocket.  With  that  involuntary 
act,  the  emotional  assault  of  the  whole  thing  nearly  had 
him.  He  remembered  Dick's  eyes  as  he  had  sometimes 
seen  them  without  their  glasses,  wistful  and  vaguely  soft. 
Always  his  eyes,  denuded  of  the  lenses  behind  which  they 
lived,  had  a  child's  look  of  helpless  innocence,  and  here 
he  was  floored  by  life's  regardless  cruelty.  Though,  if  he 
was  not  only  floored  but  actually  done  for,  he  was  not  yet 
the  one  to  suffer.  He  was  away  in  that  sanctuary  of  the 
assaulted  body  known  as  unconsciousness,  and  Raven 
did  not  dwell  for  more  than  an  instant  on  "the  pity  of 
it"  all. 

Tira  had  come  out  of  the  hut  and,  at  sight  of  Dick 
under  his  mound  of  covering,  she  gave  a  little  cry  and 
stooped  to  him  with  outstretched  hand,  perhaps  with  an 
idea  of  somehow  easing  him.  But  Raven  caught  her  wrist 
before  she  touched  him. 

"Don't,"  said  he.     "I've  sent  down  for  the  sled." 

"Is  he ?"  she  whispered,  stepping  back  as  he  re 
leased  her. 

"I  don't  know,"  said  he.  "You  can't  do  anything. 
Don't  stay  here." 

But  she  stood  still,  staring  down  at  the  mound  of 
blankets  and  Raven  again  on  his  knees  beside  it,  his  fin 
gers  on  Dick's  wrist. 

"Didn't  you  hear  me?"  said  he  curtly.  "You're  to  get 
the  child  and  come  to  my  house  for  the  night." 

"Will  he" — and  now  he  saw  her  mind  was  with  Tenney 
—"will  he  be  arrested?" 

"I  hope,"  Raven  allowed  himself  the  bitterness  of  say 
ing,  "I  hope  he'll  get  imprisonment  for  life." 

And  there  was  such  sternness  in  the  kind  voice  that 
Tira  turned  and  went,  half  running,  up  the  path  to  the 
back  road  and  home. 


432  OLD  CROW 

That  night  at  eleven,  when  the  house  had  quieted,  and 
Raven  was  alone  in  the  library,  he  permitted  himself  a 
glimpse  at  the  denied  emotional  aspect  of  the  day.  Jerry 
had  got  quickly  to  the  top  of  the  hill  and  Dick  had  been 
moved  down  without  disaster,  Tenney,  white-faced  and 
bewildered,  lending  his  strength  as  he  was  told.  Raven 
called  upon  him  for  this  and  that,  and  kept  him  by  them 
on  the  way  down  to  the  house,  so  that  Tira  might  have 
time  to  snatch  the  child  and  hurry  away.  At  the  moment 
of  nearing-  the  house  he  remembered  her,  and  that  if 
Tenney  went  directly  back  by  the  high  road,  he  might 
meet  her. 

"Here !"  This  to  Tenney,  who  was  sagging  on  be 
hind  the  sled,  and  who  at  once  hurried  along  to  his  side. 
"Go  back  to  the  hut  and  see  if  I've  left  the  key  in  the 
door.  If  it's  there,  you  can  lock  up  and  bring  it  down 
to  me.  If  it  isn't,  don't  come  back." 

Then,  he  assumed,  Tenney  would  go  home  by  the  back 
road,  the  shortest  route.  For  he  would  not  find  the  key, 
which  was  still  in  Raven's  pocket.  Tenney  looked  at  him, 
seemed  to  have  something  to  say,  and  finally  managed  it. 
As  Raven  remembered,  it  was  something  about  pa'tridges 
and  his  gun.  Whether  he  was  shaken  by  fright,  one  could 
not  have  told,  but  he  was,  as  Charlotte  remarked  upon  it 
afterward,  "all  to  pieces."  Raven  ignored  the  mumble, 
whatever  it  was,  and  Tenney,  finally  understanding  that 
he  might  as  well  be  as  far  off  the  earth  as  Dick,  for  all 
the  attention  anybody  was  going  to  pay  him,  turned, 
limping,  and  then  Raven,  with  that  mechanical  sensi 
tiveness  to  physical  need  always  awake  in  him  now, 
caught  up  a  stick  lying  in  the  dooryard  and  tossed  it  to 
him. 

"Here !"  said  he.    "That'll  do  for  a  cane." 

Tenney  could  not  catch ;  he  was  too  stupid  from  bewil- 


OLD  CROW  433 

derment  of  mind.  But  he  picked  it  up,  and  went  limping 
off  across  the  road  and  up  the  hill.  Then  the  women  had 
to  be  told,  and  when  Jerry  brought  the  horses  to  a  stand 
still  at  the  door,  Raven  ran  in,  pushing  Charlotte  aside — 
dear  Charlotte !  she  was  too  used  to  life  and  death  to  need 
palliatives  of  indirection  in  breaking  even  such  news  as 
this — and  believed  now,  as  he  thought  it  over,  that  he  met 
Milly  and  Nan,  who  had  seen  their  approach,  running  to 
meet  him,  and  that  he  said  something  about  accident  and, 
as  if  it  were  an  echo  of  Tenney,  a  fool  shooting  partridges. 
Milly,  shocked  out  of  her  neat  composure,  gave  a  cry, 
but  Nan  turned  on  her,  bade  her  be  quiet,  and  called 
Charlotte  to  the  bedroom  to  get  it  ready.  It  was  Milly's 
room,  but  the  most  accessible  place.  Raven  telephoned 
for  the  doctor  at  the  street  and  called  a  long-distance  for 
a  Boston  surgeon  of  repute,  asking  him  to  bring  two 
nurses ;  and  he  and  Nan  rapidly  dressed  the  wound,  with 
Dick  still  mercifully  off  in  the  refuge  called  unconscious 
ness.  Raven  remembered  that  Milly,  as  she  got  in  his 
way,  kept  telling  him  she  ought  to  have  taken  a  course 
in  first  aid,  and  that  Dick  was  her  son  and  if  a  mother 
didn't  know,  who  did?  But  he  fancied  he  did  not  answer 
at  all,  and  that  he  and  Nan  worked  together,  with  quick 
interrogative  looks  at  each  other  here  and  there,  a  lifted 
eyebrow,  a  confirming  nod.  And  now  the  local  doctor  had 
arrived,  had  professed  himself  glad  his  distinguished  col 
league  had  been  summoned  and  approved  Raven's  work. 
He  was  gone  in  answer  to  another  urgent  call,  and  the 
surgeon  had  not  come,  could  not  come  for  hours.  But 
Dick  was  conscious,  though  either  too  weak  or  too  wisely 
cautious  to  lift  an  eyelid,  and  Nan  was  with  him.  That 
Raven  had  ordered,  and  told  Milly  she  was  to  come  to 
the  library  after  Jerry  moved  her  things  upstairs  and  she 
was  settled  for  the  night. 


434  OLD  CROW 

Milly  was  badly  shaken.  She  looked,  her  strained  eyes 
and  mouth  compressed,  as  if  not  only  was  she  robbed  of 
the  desire  of  sleep,  but  had  sworn  never,  in  her  distrust 
of  what  life  could  do  to  her,  to  sleep  again.  But  she  had 
not  appeared,  and  as  Raven  sat  there  waiting  for  her, 
Charlotte  came  down  the  stairs  and  glanced  in,  a  compre 
hensive  look  at  the  light,  the  fire,  and  at  him,  as  if  to 
assure  him,  whatever  the  need  in  the  sick  room,  she  kept 
him  also  in  mind.  Raven  signed  to  her  and  she  nodded. 
He  had  a  question  to  ask.  It  had  alternated  in  his  mind 
with  queer  little  heart-beats  of  alarm  about  Dick:  hem 
orrhage,  shock,  hemorrhage — recurrent  beats  of  prophetic 
disaster. 

"Have  you  seen  Tira?"  he  asked.  "I  told  her  to  come 
here  and  stay  till  we  could  get  her  off  somewhere." 

Then  he  remembered  that,  so  wide-reaching  did  Char 
lotte  always  seem  to  him  in  her  knowledge  of  the  life  about 
her,  he  had  not  explained  why  Tira  must  be  got  out  of 
the  way,  and  that  also  was  before  him.  But  in  her  amaz 
ing  habit  of  knowing,  she  knew. 

"No,"  she  said,  "she  ain't  b'en  near.  She  won't  leave 
Tenney.  She's  one  o'  them  that  sticks  by." 

Immediately  he  was  curious  to  hear  what  she  had  im 
agined,  how  she  knew.  Was  the  neighborhood  awake  to 
even  the  most  obscure  local  drama?  While  Tira  thought 
she  was,  at  the  expense  of  her  own  safety,  covering1  Ten 
ney 's  wildness  of  jealousy,  were  they  all  walking  in  the 
sun? 

"Who  told  you?"  he  asked  her. 

"Why,  nobody,"  said  Charlotte.  "It  didn't  take  no 
tellin'.  Jerry  heard  him  hollerin'  after  her  that  day  you 
was  up  in  the  woods,  an'  when  you  kep'  the  loggin'  road 
broke,  I  knew  you  was  givin'  her  some  kind  of  a  hole  to 
creep  into." 


OLD  CROW  435 

So  they  had  known,  she  and  Jerry.  But  they  had  not 
told.  They  would  never  tell. 

"One  thing,"  said  Charlotte,  smoothing  her  apron  and 
looking  at  him  in  an  anxious  interrogation,  "what  be  we 
goin'  to  say?  That  was  the  first  thing  doctor  asked: 
4 Who  done  it?'  (You  know  I  let  him  in.)  "Twas  a  poor 
crazed  creatur,'  says  I,  'after  pa'tridges.'  I  was  goin'  to 
say  Dick  had  a  gun  an'  tripped  up  over  a  root;  but  that 
never'd  do  in  the  world,  shot  in  the  back  so." 

"The  partridges'll  do  for  the  present,"  said  Raven 
grimly.  "He's  certainly  crazy  enough.  He  said  he  was 
shooting  partridges.  We'll  take  it  at  that." 

Charlotte  went  on,  and  he  sat  thinking.  So  Tira  had 
chosen  not  to  come.  So  fixed  was  his  mind  on  the  stern 
exigency  of  the  situation,  as  it  now  stood,  that  her  dis 
obedience  in  itself  irritated  him.  The  right  of  decision, 
as  he  reasoned,  had  passed  out  of  her  hands  into  his. 
He  was,  in  a  sense,  holding  the  converging  lines  of  all 
this  sudden  confusion ;  he  was  her  commanding  officer. 
At  that  moment,  when  he  was  recognizing  his  anger 
against  her  and  far  from  palliating,  cherishing  it  as  one 
of  the  tools  in  his  hand,  to  keep  him  safely  away  from 
enfeebling  doubt,  Milly  came  noiselessly  down  the  stairs. 
She  would,  he  realized,  in  her  unflinching  determination 
to  do  the  efficient  thing,  be  as  silent  as  a  shadow.  She 
appeared  in  the  doorway,  and  her  face,  her  bearing,  were 
no  longer  Milly's.  This  was  a  paper  semblance  of  a 
woman,  drawn  on  her  lines,  but  made  to  express  grief  and 
terror.  Quiet  as  she  was,  the  shock  had  thrown  her  out 
of  her  studied  calm.  She  was  elemental  woman,  despising 
the  rigidities  of  training,  scourged  into  revolt.  Even  her 
dress,  though  fitted  to  the  technical  needs  of  the  hour, 
was  unstudied.  Her  hair,  ordinarily  waved,  even  in  the 
country,  by  the  intelligence  of  her  capable  fingers,  was 


436  OLD  GROW 

twisted  in  a  knot  on  the  back  of  her  head.  Raven,  so 
effective  had  been  the  success  of  her  ameliorating  devices, 
thought  Milly's  hair  conspicuously  pretty.  But  now 
there  was  a  little  button  of  it  only,  as  if  she  had  prepared 
for  exacting  service  where  one  displaced  lock  might  undo 
her.  A  blue  silk  negligee  was  wrapped  about  her,  with 
a  furled  effect  of  tightening  to  the  blast,  and  her  face 
was  set  in  a  mask  of  grief  that  was  not  grief  alone,  but 
terror.  She  came  in  and  sat  down  in  one  of  the  chairs 
by  the  hearth,  not  relaxing  in  the  act,  but  as  if  she 
could  no  longer  stand. 

"John !"  she  said,  in  a  broken  interrogation.     "John !" 

He  got  up  and  elaborately  tended  the  fire,  laying  the 
sticks  together  with  an  extreme  care,  and  thinking,  as  he 
did  it,  by  one  of  those  idle  divagations  of  the  mind,  like  a 
grace  note  on  the  full  chord  of  action,  that  a  failing  fire 
had  helped  a  man  out  of  more  than  one  hole  in  this  dis 
turbing  life.  It  gave  your  strung  nerves  and  rasped 
endurance  a  minute's  salutary  pause.  He  put  down  the 
tongs  and  returned  to  his  chair. 

"Buck  up,  Milly,"  said  he.  "Everything's  being  done. 
Now  it'll  be  up  to  Dick." 

But  he  realized,  as  if  it  were  another  trial  setting  upon 
him  at  the  moment  when  he  had  borne  enough,  that  his 
eyes  were  suddenly  hot.  This  was  not  for  Milly,  not  for 
himself.  Again,  for  some  obscure  reason,  he  saw  Dick's 
eyes,  softened,  child-like,  as  he  had  recalled  them  without 
their  glasses.  Through  these  past  weeks  of  strain,  he  had 
been  irritated  with  the  boy,  he  had  jeered  at  him  for  the 
extravagances  of  his  gusty  youth.  Why,  the  boy  was 
only  a  boy,  after  all !  But  Milly,  leaning  forward  to  the 
fire,  her  trembling  hands  over  the  blaze,  was  talking  with 
amazing  intensity,  but  still  quietly,  not  to  disturb  the 
stillness  of  the  expectant  house.  For  the  house,  suddenly 


OLD  CROW  437 

changed,  seemed  itself  to  be  waiting,  as  houses  do  in  time 
of  trouble.  Was  it  for  Dick  to  die  or  to  take  on  life 
again?  Houses  are  seldom  kind  at  such  times,  even  in 
their  outward  tranquillity.  They  are  sinister. 

And  when  Milly  began  to  speak,  Raven  found  he  had 
to  deal  with  a  woman  surprisingly  different  from  the  one 
who  had  striven  to  heal  him  through  her  borrowed  aphor 
isms. 

"To  think,"  she  began,  "to  think  he  should  escape, 
after  being  over  there — over  there,  John,  in  blood  and 
dirt  and  death — and  come  home  to  be  shot  in  the  back 
by  a  tramp  with  a  gun!  Where  is  the  man?  You 
detained  him,  didn't  you?  Don't  tell  me  you  let  him  go." 

"I  know  where  to  find  him,"  Raven  temporized.  "He'd 
no  idea  of  going." 

She  insisted. 

"You  think  it  was  an  accident?  He  couldn't  have  had 
a  grudge.  Dick  hadn't  an  enemy." 

"You  can  make  your  mind  easy  about  that,"  said 
Raven,  taking  refuge  in  a  detached  sincerity.  "It  wasn't 
meant  for  Dick.  He  was  as  far  from  the  fellow's  thoughts 
as  the  moon." 

He  remembered  the  fringe  of  somber  woods  and  the 
curve  of  the  new  moon. 

"It  isn't  so  much  the  misfortunes  of  life,"  Milly  kept 
on.  She  was  beating  her  knee  now  with  one  closed  hand 
and  her  voice  kept  time.  "It's  the  chances,  the  horrible 
way  things  come  and  knock  you  down  because  you're  in 
their  path.  If  he  doesn't" — here  she  stopped  and  Raven 
knew  she  added,  in  her  own  mind,  "if  he  doesn't  live — 
I  shall  never  believe  in  anything  again.  Never,  John, 
never !" 

Raven  was  silent,  not  only  because  it  seemed  well  for 
her  to  free  her  mind,  but  because  he  had  a  sudden  curios- 


438  OLD  CROW 

ity  to  hear  more.  This  was  Millj  outside  her  armor  at 
last.  When  she  had  caught  him  out  of  his  armor,  she 
had  proposed  sending  him  to  the  Psychopathic,  and  here 
she  was  herself,  raving  against  heaven  and  earth  as  unre 
strainedly  as  a  savage  woman  might  beat  her  head  against 
a  cliff. 

"Chance!"  she  repeated.  "That's  what  it  is,  chance! 
He  got  in  the  way  and  he  was  struck.  I  lived  through  the 
War.  I  gave  my  son.  What  more  could  I  do?  But  now, 
to  have  him  come  home  to  our  old  house  and  be  shot  in 
the  back !  How  can  you  sit  there  and  not  move  a  muscle 
or  say  a  word?  What  are  you  thinking  about ?" 

"Well,"  said  Raven  quietly,  "if  you'll  believe  me,  I'm 
thinking1  about  you.  I'm  mighty  sorry  for  you,  Milly. 
And  I'm  keeping  one  ear  cocked  for  Nan." 

"There's  no  change,"  she  interrupted  him.  "Charlotte 
would  tell  us.  I  left  Nan  on  purpose.  I  want  him,  every 
time  he  opens  his  eyes,  to  see  her  there.  She's  the  one 
he  wants.  Mothers  don't  count."  Here  again  the  ele 
mental  woman  flashed  out  and  Raven  welcomed  the  reality 
of  it.  "She  couldn't  help  being  kind,  with  him  as  he  is." 

No,  he  inwardly  concurred,  Nan,  who  had  kissed  the 
boy  to  hearten  him  in  his  need,  would  be  ready  with  her 
medicinal  love  again.  She'd  pour  herself  out :  trust  her 
for  that. 

"Besides,"  he  said,  "besides  you  and  Dick  and  Nan,  I 
was  thinking  of  Old  Crow." 

"Old  Crow?"  This  threw  her  out  for  an  instant  and 
she  went  back  to  her  conception  of  Raven  as  a  victim  of 
complexes  of  which  Old  Crow  was  chief.  "It's  no  time 
for  dwelling  on  things  that  are  past  and  gone.  You  think 
far  too  much  about  Old  Crow.  It  weakens  you." 

"Old  Crow,"  said  Raven  quietly,  "is  the  chap  you  and 
I  need  here  to-night.  I'd  like  mighty  well  to  sit  down 


OLD  CROW  439 

and  talk  it  over  with  him.  So  would  you,  if  you  knew 
him  better.  Old  Crow  went  through  what  you  and  I  are 
going  through  now.  He  found  the  world  a  deuced  puz 
zling  place  and  he  didn't  see  the  conventional  God  as  any 
sort  of  a  solution.  And  then — I  don't  suppose  you're 
going  to  bed  right  off.  You  won't  feel  like  sleep?" 

"Bed!"  she  flung  out.      "Sleep!" 

"Then  look  here,  Milly,"  said  Raven,  "you  do  what  I 
tell  you."  He  opened  a  drawer  in  his  desk  and  took  out 
the  mottled  book.  "Here's  Old  Crow's  journal.  You  sit 
here  by  the  fire  and  read  it  while  I  take  Nan's  place  and 
send  her  off  to  bed.  And  if  it  doesn't  give  you  an  idea 
Old  Crow's  got  his  mind  on  us  to-night,  wherever  he  is, 
I'm  mistaken." 

He  brought  her  the  book.  She  took  it,  with  no  interest, 
leaving  it  unopened  on  her  knee. 

"Wherever  he  is,"  she  repeated,  not  precisely  curious, 
but  as  if  she  might  be  on  the  verge  of  it  when  she  again 
had  time.  "I  didn't  know  you  believed  in  immortality." 

"I  didn't,  either,"  said  Raven.  "But,"  he  added,  "I 
believe  in  Old  Crow." 

She  was  holding  the  book  mechanically  and  he  left  her 
sitting  with  it  still  unopened  and  went  in  to  Dick.  He 
found  him  restless,  not  in  any  movement  of  his  body  but 
in  the  glance  of  his  dilated  eyes.  Nan  looked  up,  grave, 
steady,  gone  back,  as  Raven  saw,  to  her  trained  habit  of 
action,  emotionless,  concentrated  on  the  moment. 

"You'd  better  go  up  to  bed,"  said  Raven.  "I'll  stay 
now.  He  can  have  you  to-morrow." 

"He  can  have  me  all  the  time,"  said  Nan  clearly,  and 
Dick's  eyes  turned  upon  her  with  an  indifferent  sort  of 
query.  How  much  did  she  mean  by  that?  It  sounded  as 
if  she  meant  everything,  and  yet  Raven,  his  heart  con 
stricting,  knew  it  might  not  be  more  than  impetuous 


440  OLD  CROW 

sacrifice,  the  antidote  given  in  haste.  But  now  Dick  spoke 
and  Raven  bent  to  him,  for  either  he  was  too  weak  to 
speak  clearly  or  he  was  saving  himself. 

"Don't  arrest  him.     No  end  of  talk." 

"No,"  said  Raven.     "It  wasn't  you  he  was  out  for." 

The  restless  eyes  turned  on  Nan. 

"Go  to  bed,"  said  Dick. 

Her  hand  had  been  on  his  and  she  took  it  gently  away, 
and  got  up. 

"I'm  not  sleepy,"  she  said.  "I'll  camp  in  the  library  a 
while." 

When  she  had  gone  Raven,  sitting  there  by  Dick,  who 
did  not  speak  again,  listened  for  the  murmur  of  voices 
from  the  library.  WTould  they  keep  companionable  vigil, 
the  two  women,  heartening  each  other  by  a  word,  or  would 
they  sit  aloof,  each  wrapped  in  her  own  grief?  There 
was  not  a  sound.  They  were  falling  in  with  that  deter 
mination  of  the  house  to  maintain  its  sinister  stillness,  its 
air  of  knowing  more  than  it  would  tell. 


XXXIX 

Tenney,  not  finding  the  key  of  the  hut,  and  increas 
ingly  alive  to  the  anguish  flaring  in  his  foot,  went  home 
by  the  back  way.  Tira  was  waiting  at  the  door.  She 
saw  him  coming,  and,  for  that  first  moment,  he  could 
ignore  the  pain  in  a  savage  recognition  of  her  plight.  She 
had,  he  thought,  having  missed  the  key,  not  even  tried 
the  door.  But  this  brief  summary  of  her  guilty  folly 
angered  him  for  the  moment  only.  He  was  suddenly  tired, 
and  his  foot  did  ache  outrageously.  He  gave  way  to  the 
pain  of  it,  and  limped  heavily.  As  he  neared  the  house, 
however,  his  face  did  relax  into  a  mirthless  smile.  There 
were  tracks  under  the  kitchen  window.  She  had  hoped  to 
get  in  that  way  and  had  found  the  window  fastened.  And 
all  the  time  there  was  the  door,  ready  for  a  confident  hand. 
But  the  ill  chance  of  it  amused  him  for  not  much  more 
than  the  instant  of  its  occurrence.  His  mind  recoiled 
upon  his  own  miserable  state.  He  had  gone  out  in  search 
of  justice,  and  he  had  come  home  in  terror  of  what  he 
had  himself  unjustly  done.  If  he  had  been  imaginative 
enough  to  predict  the  righteous  satisfaction  he  expected 
from  his  vengeance  on  Raven,  he  might  have  foreseen 
himself  coming  back  to  bring  Tira  the  evil  news,  and  smil 
ing,  out  of  his  general  rectitude,  at  her  grief  and  terror. 
Perhaps  he  would  have  been  wrong  in  those  unformulated 
assumptions.  Perhaps  he  would  not  have  been  calm 
enough  for  satisfaction  in  the  completed  deed,  since  the 
mind  does,  after  a  red  act,  become  at  once  fugitive  before 
the  furies  of  inherited  beliefs  and  fears.  Perhaps  it  would 

441 


442  OLD  CROW 

have  shrunk  cowering  back  from  the  old,  old  penalty 
against  the  letting  of  blood,  as  it  did  now  when  he  was 
faced  with  the  tragic  irony  of  the  deed  as  it  was.  He  had 
shed  blood  and,  by  one  of  the  savage  mischances  of  life, 
the  blood  of  a  man  innocent  of  offense  against  him.  After 
the  first  glance  at  Tira,  he  did  not  look  at  her  again,  but 
passed  her,  threw  open  the  door,  and  went  in.  His 
thoughts,  becoming  every  instant  more  confused,  as  the 
appalling  moments  in  the  woods  beat  themselves  out  nois 
ily,  seemed  to  favor  closing  the  door  behind  him.  It  was 
she  who  had  brought  him  to  this  pass.  It  was  she  who 
had  locked  his  door  upon  herself  and,  in  her  wantonness, 
as  good  as  thrown  away  the  key.  Let  her  stay  outside. 
But  he  was  not  equal  to  even  that  sharpness  of  decision 
and  Tira,  after  she  found  the  door  swinging  free,  went  in. 

Tenney  had  seated  himself  in  his  arm-chair  by  the 
window.  He  had  not  taken  off  his  hat,  and  he  sat  there, 
hands  clasped  upon  the  stick  Raven  had  tossed  him,  his 
head  bent  over  them.  He  looked  like  a  man  far  gone  in 
age  and  misery,  and  Tira,  returning  from  the  bedroom, 
the  child  in  her  arms,  felt  a  mounting  of  compassion  and 
was  no  longer  afraid.  She  laid  the  child  in  its  cradle  and, 
with  a  cheerful  clatter,  put  wood  in  the  stove.  The  child 
cried  fretfully  and,  still  stepping1  about  the  room,  she 
began  to  sing,  as  if  to  distract  it,  though  she  knew  she 
was  making  the  sounds  of  life  about  Tenney  to  draw  him 
forth  from  the  dark  cavern  where  his  spirit  had  taken 
refuge.  But  he  did  not  look  up,  and  presently  she  spoke 
to  him : 

"Ain't  you  goin'  to  unharness?  I'm  'most  afraid 
Charlie'll  be  cold." 

The  form  of  her  speech  was  a  deliberate  challenge,  a 
fashion  of  rousing  him  to  an  old  contention.  For  it  was 
one  of  her  loving  habits  with  animals  to  name  them,  and 


OLD  CROW  443 

Tcnney,  finding  that  "all  foolishness,"  would  never  accept 
the  pretty  intimacies.  To  him,  the  two  horses  were  the 
bay  and  the  colt,  and  now  Tira,  with  an  anxious  intent  of 
stirring  him  even  to  contradiction,  longed  to  hear  him 
repeat,  "Charlie?"  adding,  "D'you  mean  the  bay?"  But 
he  neither  spoke  nor  moved,  and  she  suddenly  realized  that 
if  she  screamed  at  him  he  would  not  hear.  She  went  on 
stepping  about  the  room,  and  presently,  when  the  dusk 
had  fallen  so  that  she  could  see  the  horse  in  the  yard  only 
as  an  indeterminate  bulk,  she  slipped  out,  unharnessed 
him,  and  led  him  into  his  stall.  She  began  to  fodder  the 
cattle,  pausing  now  and  then  to  listen  for  Tenney's  step. 
But  he  did  not  come.  She  returned  to  the  house  for  her 
pails,  lighted  a  lantern,  and  went  back  to  milk.  Still  he 
did  not  come,  and  when  she  carried  in  her  milk,  there  he 
sat  in  the  dark  kitchen,  his  head  bent  upon  his  hands. 
Tira  shut  up  the  barn,  came  back  to  the  kitchen,  and  put 
out  her  lantern;  then  she  was  suddenly  spent,  and  sat 
down  a  moment  by  the  stove,  her  hands  in  her  lap.  And 
so  they  sat  together,  the  man  and  woman,  and  the  child 
was  as  still  as  they.  He  had  whimpered  himself  off  to 
sleep. 

Tira,  recognizing  herself,  with  a  dull  indifference,  as 
too  tired  to  move,  was  not  at  first  conscious  of  thinking 
either  about  what  she  had  gone  through  or  what  was 
before  her.  But  as  her  muscles  relaxed,  her  mind,  as  it 
was  always  doing  now  for  its  rest  and  comfort,  left  this 
present  scene  where,  for  the  first  active  moments,  Tenncy 
had  filled  her  thoughts,  and  settled  upon  Raven.  He  had 
told  her  to  come  to  him.  He  had  ordered  it,  as  if  she  be 
longed  to  him,  and  there  was  heavenly  sweetness  in  that. 
Tira  loved  this  new  aspect  of  him.  She  rested  in  it,  as  a 
power  alive  to  her,  protecting  her,  awake  to  her  well-berng. 
Yet,  after  that  first  glance  at  Tenney,  sitting  there  with 


444  OLD  CROW 

head  bent  over  the  stick,  she  had  not  a  moment's  belief  in 
her  right  to  go.  It  was  sweet  to  be  commanded,  to  her 
own  safety,  but  here  before  her  were  the  dark  necessities 
she  must  share.  And  suddenly,  as  she  sat  there,  and  the 
sense  of  Raven's  protectingness  enfolded  her  and  she  grew 
more  rested,  a  feeling  of  calmness  fell  upon  her,  of  some 
thing  friendly  nearer  her  than  Raven  even  (though  it  had 
seemed  to  her  lately  as  if  nothing  could  be  more  near),  and 
she  almost  spoke  aloud,  voicing  her  surprised  delight: 
"Why,  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ !"  But  she  did  not  speak 
the  words  aloud.  She  refrained  in  time,  for  fear  of  dis 
turbing  Tenney  in  some  way  not  wise  for  him;  but  her 
lips  formed  them  and  they  comforted  her.  Then,  sud 
denly  tranquillized  and  feeling  strong,  she  rose  and  fed 
the  child  and  made  some  bustling  ado,  talking  about  milk 
and  bread,  hoping  to  rouse  Tenney  to  the  thought  of 
food.  But  he  sat  there  darkly,  and  by  and  by  she  put  the 
kettle  on  and,  in  the  most  ordinary  manner,  made  tea  and 
spread  their  table. 

"Come,"  she  said  to  him.  "Supper's  ready.  We  might's 
well  draw  up." 

He  did  glance  at  her  then,  as  if  she  had  surprised  him, 
and  she  smiled,  to  give  him  confidence.  At  that  time  Tira 
felt  all  her  strength,  her  wholesome  rude  endurance,  to 
the  full,  and  stood  tall  and  steady  there  in  the  room  with 
the  two  who  were  her  charge  and  who  now,  it  seemed  to 
her,  needed  her  equally.  Tenney  rose  with  difficulty  and 
stood  a  moment  to  get  control  of  his  foot.  He  walked  to 
the  table  and  was  about  to  sit  down.  But  suddenly  his 
eyes  seemed  to  be  drawn  by  his  hand  resting  on  the  back 
of  the  chair.  He  raised  it,  turned  it  palm  up  and  scru 
tinized  it,  and  then  he  looked  at  the  other  hand  with  the 
same  questioning  gaze,  and,  after  a  moment,  when  Tira, 
reading  his  mind,  felt  her  heart  beating  wildly,  he  went  to 


OLD  CROW  445 

the  sink  and  pumped  water  into  the  basin.  He  began  to 
wash  his  hands.  There  was  nothing  on  them,  no  stain 
such  as  his  fearful  mind  projected,  but  he  washed  them 
furiously  and  without  looking. 

"You  stop  a  minute,"  said  Tira  quietly.  "I'll  give  you 
a  mite  o'  hot  water,  if  you'll  wait." 

She  filled  a  dipper  from  the  tea  kettle,  and,  tipping  the 
water  from  his  basin  into  the  sink,  mixed  hot  and  cold, 
trying  it  solicitously,  and  left  him  to  use  it. 

"There!"  she  said,  standing  by  the  table  waiting  for 
him,  "you  come  as  quick's  you  can.  Your  tea'll  be  cold." 

So  they  drank  their  tea  together,  and  Tira  forced  her 
self  to  eat,  and,  from  the  store  of  woman's  experience 
within  her,  knew  she  ought  to  urge  him  also  to  hearten 
himself  with  meat  and  bread.  But  she  did  not  dare.  She 
could  feel  the  misery  of  his  sick  mind.  She  had  always 
felt  it.  But  there  were  reactions,  of  obstinacy,  of  rage 
almost,  in  the  obscurity  of  its  workings,  and  these  she 
could  not  challenge.  But  she  poured  him  strong  tea,  and 
when  he  would  take  no  more,  got  up  and  cleared  the  table. 
And  he  kept  his  place,  staring  down  at  his  hand.  He  was 
studying  it  with  a  look  curiously  detached,  precisely  as  he 
had  regarded  it  at  the  moment  when  he  seemed  to  become 
aware  of  its  invisible  stain.  Tira,  as  she  went  back  and 
forth  about  the  room,  found  herself  also,  by  force  of  his 
attitude,  glancing  at  the  hand.  Almost  she  expected  to 
find  it  red.  When  her  work  was  done,  she  sat  down  by 
the  stove  and  undressed  the  baby,  who  was  fretful  still  and 
crying  in  a  way  she  was  thankful  to  hear.  It  made  a 
small  commotion  in  the  room.  If  it  irritated  Tenney  into 
waking  from  his  daze,  so  much  the  better. 

Ten  o'clock  came,  and  Tenney  had  not  stirred.  When 
eleven  struck  she  roused  from  her  doze  and  saw  his  head 
had  sunken  forward ;  he  was  at  the  nodding  point  of  sleep. 


446  OLD  CROW 

She  had  been  keeping  up  the  fire,  and  presently  she  rose 
to  put  in  wood,  knocking  down  a  stick  she  had  left  on  the 
end  of  the  stove  to  be  reached  for  noiselessly.  He  started 
awake  and  rose,  pushing  back  his  chair. 

"Is  that  them?"  he  asked  her,  with  a  disordered  wildness 
of  mien.  "Have  they  come  ?" 

By  this  she  knew  he  expected  arrest  for  what  he  had 
done. 

"No,"  she  said,  in  her  quietest  voice.  "Nobody's  comin' 
here  to-night.  I  dropped  a  stick  o'  wood,  that's  all. 
Don't  you  think  you  better  poke  off  to  bed?" 

He  did  not  answer  her,  but  went  to  the  window,  put  his 
hands  to  his  face  and  peered  out.  Then  he  turned,  stood 
a  moment  looking  about  the  room  as  if  for  some  sugges 
tion  of  refuge,  went  to  the  couch,  and  lay  down.  Tira 
stood  for  a  moment  considering.  Almost  at  once,  he  was 
asleep.  She  threw  a  shawl  over  him  and  went  into  the 
bedroom  and  stretched  herself  as  she  was  on  the  bed. 


XL 


Raven,  to  his  sorry  amusement,  discovered  something. 
It  was  Milly,  and  she  had  changed.  Indubitably  Milly  re 
garded  him  with  a  mixture  of  wonder  and  of  awe.  He  had 
taken  command  of  the  situation  in  the  house  and  developed 
it  rationally.  The  house  itself  had  become  a  converging 
point  for  all  medical  science  could  do  for  a  man  hit  in  a 
vital  spot  and  having  little  chance  of  recover}'.  But  what 
Raven  knew  to  be  the  common  sense  of  the  measures  he 
brought  to  pass,  Milly,  in  her  wildness  of  anxiety,  looked 
upon  as  the  miracles  of  genius.  She  even  conciliated  him, 
as  the  poor  human  conciliates  his  god.  She  brought  him 
the  burnt  offering  of  her  expressed  belief,  her  humility  of 
admiration.  And  whenever  one  of  the  family  was  allowed 
to  supplement  the  nurses,  by  day  or  night,  she  effaced 
herself  in  favor  of  Raven  or  Nan.  Raven  was  the  magi 
cian  who  knew  where  healing  lay.  Nan  was  warmth  and 
coolness,  air  and  light.  Dick's  eyes  followed  Nan  and  she 
answered  them,  comforting,  sustaining  him,  Raven  and 
Milly  fully  believed,  in  his  hold  on  earth.  But  as  to 
Milly,  Raven  had  to  keep  on  wondering  over  her  as  she 
wondered  at  him.  So  implicit  had  been  his  belief  in  her 
acquired  equipment  for  applying  accepted  remedies  to  the 
mischances  of  life,  that  he  was  amazed  at  seeing  her  devas 
tated,  overthrown.  She  was  even  less  calm  than  the  women 
he  remembered  here  in  this  country  neighborhood.  When 
sickness  entered  their  homes,  they  were,  for  the  most  part, 
models  of  efficient  calm.  They  had  reserves  of  energy.  He 

447 


448  OLD  GROW 

wondered  if  Milly  had  crumbled  so  because  she  had  not 
only  to  act  but  to  decide  how  to  seem  to  act.  She  had 
to  keep  up  the  wearisome  routine  of  fitting  her  feelings  to 
her  behavior,  her  behavior  to  her  feelings.  There  were 
not  only  things  to  be  done;  there  were  also  the  social 
standards  of  what  ought,  in  crises,  to  be  felt.  She  had  to 
satisfy  her  gods.  And  she  simply  wasn't  strong  enough. 
Her  hold  was  broken.  She  knew  it,  clutched  at  him  and 
hung  on  him,  a  dead  weight,  while  he  buoyed  her  up. 
Were  they  all,  he  wondered,  victims  of  the  War?  Milly, 
as  she  said  that  night  when  she  came  to  him  in  her  stark 
sincerity  while  Dick  lay  unconscious,  had  given  him  up 
once.  She  had  given  him  to  the  War,  and  done  the  act  with 
the  high  decorum  suited  to  it.  And  the  country  had  re 
turned  him  to  her.  But  now,  grotesque,  bizarre  beyond 
words,  she  had  to  surrender  him  to  a  fool  "shooting  pa't- 
ridges."  For  facing  a  travesty  like  that,  she  had  no 
decorum  left. 

Dick,  too,  was  the  victim  of  abnormal  conditions.  He 
had  been  summoned  to  the  great  act  of  sacrifice  to  save 
the  world,  and  the  call  had  challenged  him  to  after  judg 
ments  he  was  not  ripe  enough  to  meet.  It  had  beguiled 
him  into  a  natural  sophistry.  For  had  not  the  world,  in 
its  need,  called  mightily  on  the  sheer  strength  and  endur 
ance  of  youth  to  slay  the  dragon  of  brute  strength  in  her 
enemies?  Youth  had  done  it.  Therefore  there  was  no 
dragon,  whether  of  the  mind  or  soul,  it  could  not  also  slay. 
His  fellows  told  him  so,  and  because  they  were  his  fellows 
and  spoke  the  tongue  he  understood,  he  believed  it  with  a 
simple  honesty  that  was  Dick. 

As  to  Nan,  she  seemed  to  Raven  the  one  sane  thing  in 
a  bewildered  world ;  and  for  himself :  "I'm  blest  if  I  believe 
I'm  so  dotty,  after  all,"  he  mused.  "What  do  you  think 
about  it?"  And  this  last  he  addressed,  not  to  himself,  but 


OLD  CROW 

to  the  ever-present  intelligence  of  Old  Crow.  He  kept 
testing  things  by  what  Old  Crow  would  think.  He  spoke 
of  him  often,  as  of  a  mind  active  in  the  universe,  but  only 
to  Nan.  And  one  night,  late  enough  in  the  spring  for  the 
sound  of  running  water  and  a  bitterness  of  buds  in  the  air, 
he  said  it  to  her  when  she  came  down  the  path  to  him 
where  he  stood  listening  to  the  stillness  broken  by  the 
ticking  of  the  season's  clock — steady,  familiar  sounds, 
that  told  him  winter  had  broken  and  the  heart  of  things 
was  beating  on  to  leaf  and  bloom.  He  had,  if  he  was 
not  actually  waiting  for  her,  hoped  she  would  come  out, 
and  now  he  saw  her  coming,  saw  her  step  back  into  the 
hall  for  a  scarf  and  appear  again,  holding  it  about  her 
shoulders.  At  last,  firm  as  she  was  in  spirit,  she  had 
changed.  She  was  thinner,  with  more  than  the  graceful 
meagerness  of  youth,  and  her  eyes  looked  pathetically 
large  from  her  pale  face.  She  had  seen  Dick  go  slipping 
down  the  slope,  and  now  that  beneficent  reactions  were 
drawing  him  slowly  back  again,  she  was  feeling  the  waste 
of  her  own  bodily  fortitude. 

"Where  shall  we  go?"  she  asked  him.  "Been  to  the  hut 
lately?" 

No,  Raven  told  her,  he  hadn't  been  there  for  days. 
They  crossed  the  road  and  began  the  ascent  into  the 
woods. 

"So  you  don't  know  whether  she's  been  there?"  Nan 
asked.  She  stopped  to  breathe  in  the  wood  fragrances, 
coming  now  like  a  surprise.  She  had  almost  forgotten 
"outdoors." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.  "I  know.  Sometimes  I  fancy  she 
won't  need  to  go  there  again.  Tenney's  a  wreck.  He  sits 
there  in  the  kitchen  and  doesn't  speak.  He  isn't  thinking 
about  her.  He's  thinking  of  himself." 

"How  do  you  know?     You  haven't  been  over?" 


450  OLD  CROW 

"Yes,  I  went  over  the  morning  after  the  shooting.  I 
intended  to  tell  Tira  to  get  her  things  on  and  come  down 
to  the  house.  But  when  I  saw  him — saw  them — I 
couldn't." 

"You  were  sorry  for  him?"  Nan  prompted. 

They  had  reached  the  hut,  and  Raven  took  out  the  key 
from  under  the  stone.  Close  by,  there  was  a  velvet  fern 
frond  ready  to  unfurl.  He  unlocked  the  door  and  they 
went  in.  Her  last  question  he  did  not  answer  until  he  had 
thrown  up  windows  and  brought  out  chairs  to  the  veranda 
at  the  west.  When  they  were  seated,  he  went  on  probing 
for  his  past  impression  and  speaking  thoughtfully. 

"No,  I  don't  know  that  I  was  particularly  sorry  for 
him.  But  somehow  the  two  of  them  there  together,  with 
that  poor  little  devil  between  them — well,  it  seemed  to  me 
I  couldn't  separate  them.  That's  marriage,  I  suppose. 
Anyhow  it  looked  to  me  like  it:  something  you  couldn't 
undo  because  they  wouldn't  have  it  undone." 

Nan  turned  on  him  her  old  impetuous  look. 

"You  simpleton!"  she  had  it  on  her  tongue  to  say. 
"She  doesn't  want  it  undone  because  anybody  that  lifts  a 
finger  will  get  you — not  her — deeper  into  the  mire."  But 
she  did  say :  "I  don't  believe  you  can  even  guess  what  she 
wants,  chiefly  because  she  doesn't  want  anything  for  her 
self.  But  if  you  didn't  ask  her  to  leave  him,  what  did 
you  do?" 

"I  told  him  to  hold  himself  ready  for  arrest." 

"You're  a  funny  child,"  commented  Nan.  "You  warn 
the  criminal  and  give  him  a  chance  to  skip." 

"Yes,"  said  Raven  unsmilingly.  "I  hoped  he  would.  I 
thought  I  was  giving  her  one  more  chance.  If  he  did 
skip,  so  much  the  better  for  her." 

"How  did  she  look?"  asked  Nan,  and  then  added,  tor 
menting  herself,  "Beautiful?" 


OLD  CROW  451 

"Yes,  beautiful.  Not  like  an  angel,  as  we've  seen  her. 
Like  a  saint:  haggard,  with  hungry  eyes.  I  suppose  the 
saints  hunger,  don't  you?  And  thirst."  He  was  looking 
off  through  the  tree  boles  and  Nan,  also  looking,  found 
the  distance  dim  and  felt  the  sorrow  of  youth  and  spring. 
"Everything,"  said  Raven,  "seems  to  be  in  waves.  It  has 
its  climax  and  goes  down.  Tenney's  reached  the  climax 
of  his  jealousy.  Now  he's  got  himself  to  think  about,  and 
the  other  thing  will  go  down.  Rather  a  big  price  for  Dick 
to  pay,  to  make  Tira.  safe,  but  he  has  paid  and  I  fancy 
she's  safe."  He  turned  to  her  suddenly.  "Milly's  very 
nice  to  you,"  he  asserted,  half  interrogatively. 

He  saw  the  corner  of  her  mouth  deepen  a  little  as  she 
smiled.  Milly  had  not,  they  knew,  been  always  nice. 

"Yes,"  she  agreed,  "very  nice.  She  gives  me  all  the 
credit  she  doesn't  give  you  about  doctors  and  nurses  and 
radiographs  and  Dick's  hanging  on  by  his  eyelids.  She 
says  I've  saved  him." 

"So  you  have,"  said  Raven.  "You've  kept  his  heart  up. 
And  now  you're  tired,  my  dear,  and  I  want  you  to  go 
away." 

"To  go  away?"  said  Nan.     "Where?" 

"Anywhere,  away  from  us.  We  drain  you  like  the 
deuce." 

"No,"  said  Nan,  turning  from  him  and  speaking  half 
absently,  "I  can't  go  away." 

"Why  can't  you?" 

"He'd  miss  me." 

"He'd  know  why  you  went." 

Her  old  habit  of  audacious  truth-telling  constrained 
her. 

"I  should  have  to  write  to  him,"  she  said.  "And  I 
couldn't.  I  couldn't  keep  it  up.  I  can  baby  him  all  kinds 
of  ways  when  he's  looking  at  me  with  those  big  eyes.  But 


452  OLD  CROW 

I  couldn't  write  him  as  he'd  want  me  to.  I  couldn't, 
Rookie.  It  would  be  a  promise. 

"Milly  thinks  you  have  promised."  This  he  ventured, 
though  against  his  judgment. 

"No,"  said  Nan.  "No,  I  haven't  promised.  Do  you 
want  me  to?" 

"I  don't  know,"  Raven  answered,  without  a  pause,  as 
if  he  had  been  thinking  about  it  interminably.  "If  it  had 
some  red  blood  in  it,  if  you  were — well,  if  you  loved  him, 
Nan,  I  should  be  mighty  glad.  I'd  like  to  see  you  living, 
up  to  the  top  notch,  having  something  you  knew  was 
the  only  thing  on  earth  you  wanted.  But  these  half 
and  half  things,  these  falterings  and  doing  things 
because  somebody  wants  us  to !  God  above  us !  I've  fal 
tered  too  much  myself.  I'd  rather  have  made  all  the 
mistakes  a  man  can  compass,  done  it  without  second 
thought,  than  have  ridden  up  to  the  wall  and  refused  to 
take  it." 

"Do  you  think  of  her  all  the  time?"  she  ventured,  in 
her  turn,  and  perversely  wondered  if  he  would  think  she 
meant  Tira  and  not  Aunt  Anne. 

But  he  knew.  "No,"  he  said,  "I  give  you  my  word 
she's  farther  away  from  me  than  she  ever  was  in  her  life. 
For  a  while  she  was  here,  at  my  elbow,  asking  me  what  I 
was  going  to  do  about  her  Palace  of  Peace.  But  sud 
denly — I  don't  know  whether  it's  because  my  mind  has 
been  on  Dick — suddenly  I  realized  she  was  gone.  It's  the 
first  time."  Here  he  stopped,  and  Nan  knew  he  meant 
it  was  the  first  time  since  his  boyhood  that  he  had  felt 
definitely  free  from  that  delicate  tyranny.  And  being 
jealous  for  him  and  his  dominance  over  his  life,  she  won 
dered  if  another  woman  had  crowded  out  the  memory  of 
Aunt  Anne.  Had  Tira  done  it? 

"And  you  haven't  decided  about  the  money." 


OLD  CROW  453 

"I've  decided,"  he  surprised  her  by  saying  at  once,  "to 
talk  it  out  with  Anne." 

She  could  only  look  at  him. 

"One  night,"  he  continued,  "when  Dick  was  at  his 
worst,  I  was  there  alone  with  him,  an  hour  or  so,  and  I  was 
pretty  well  keyed  up.  I  seemed  to  see  things  in  a  stark, 
clear  way.  Nothing  mattered:  not  even  Dick,  though  I 
knew  I  never  loved  the  boy  so  much  as  I  did  at  that 
minute.  I  seemed  to  see  how  we're  all  mixed  up  together. 
And  the  things  we  do  to  help  the  game  along,  the  futility 
of  them.  And  suddenly  I  thought  I  wouldn't  stand  for 
any  futility  I  could  help,  and  I  believe  I  asked  Old  Crow 
if  I  wasn't  right.  'Would  you?'  I  said.  I  knew  I  spoke 
out  loud,  for  Dick  stirred.  I  felt  a  letter  in  my  pocket — 
it  was  about  the  estate,  those  bonds,  you  remember — and 
I  knew  I'd  got  to  make  up  my  mind  about  Anne's  Palace 
of  Peace." 

Nan's  heart  was  beating  hard.  Was  he  going  to  fol 
low  Aunt  Anne's  command,  the  poor,  pitiful  letter  that 
seemed  so  generous  to  mankind  and  was  yet  so  futile  in  its 
emotional  tyranny? 

"And  I  made  up  my  mind,"  he  said,  with  the  same  sim 
plicity  of  hanging  to  the  fact  and  finding  no  necessity  for 
explaining  it,  "to  get  hold  of  Anne,  put  it  to  her,  let  her 
see  I  meant  to  be  square  about  it,  but  it  had  got  to  be 
as  I  saw  it  and  not  as  she  did.  Really  because  I'm  here 
and  she  isn't." 

Her  eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  as  she  made  no  effort 
to  restrain  them,  they  ran  over  and  spilled  in  her  lap. 
She  had  thought  hard  for  him,  but  never  so  simply,  so 
sternly  as  this. 

"How  do  you  mean,  Rookie,"  she  asked  humbly,  in 
some  doubt  as  to  her  understanding.  "How  can  you  get 
hold  of  Aunt  Anne?" 


454  OLD  GROW 

"I  don't  know,"  said  he.  "But  I've  got  to.  I  may  not 
be  able  to  get  at  her,  but  she  must  be  able  to  get  at  me. 
She's  got  to.  She's  got  to  listen  and  understand  I'm 
doing  my  best  for  her  and  what  she  wants.  Old  Crow 
understands  me.  And  when  Anne  does — why,  then  I  shall 
feel  free." 

And  while  he  implied  it  was  freedom  from  the  tyranny 
of  the  bequest,  she  knew  it  implied,  too,  a  continued  free 
dom  from  Aunt  Anne.  Would  he  ever  have  set  his  face 
so  fixedly  toward  that  if  he  had  not  found  Tira?  And 
what  was  Tira's  silent  call  to  him?  Was  it  of  the  blood 
only,  because  she  was  one  of  those  women  nature  has 
manacled  with  the  heaviness  of  the  earth's  demands? 
Strangely,  she  knew,  nature  acts,  sometimes  sending  a 
woman  child  into  the  world  with  the  seeds  of  life  shut  in 
her  baby  hand,  a  wafer  for  men  to  taste,  a  perfume  to 
draw  them  across  mountain  and  plain.  The  woman  may 
be  dutiful  and  sound,  and  then  she  suffers  bewildered  an 
guish  from  its  potency;  or  she  may  league  herself  with 
the  powers  of  darkness,  and  then  she  is  a  harlot  of  Baby 
lon  or  old  Rome.  And  Tira  was  good.  Whether  or  not 
Raven  heard  the  call  of  her  womanhood — here  Nan  drew 
back  as  from  mysteries  not  hers  to  touch — he  did  feel  to 
the  full  the  extremity  of  her  peril,  the  pathos  of  her  help 
lessness,  the  spell  of  her  beauty.  She  was  as  strong  as  the 
earth  because  it  was  the  maternal  that  spoke  in  her,  and 
all  the  forces  of  nature  must  guard  the  maternal,  that  its 
purpose  may  be  fulfilled.  Tira  could  not  speak  the  Eng 
lish  language  with  purity,  but  this  was  immaterial.  She 
was  Tira,  and  as  Tira  she  had  innocently  laid  on  Raven 
the  old,  dark  magic.  Nan  was  under  no  illusion  as  to  his 
present  abandonment  of  Tira's  cause.  That  he  seemed  to 
have  accepted  the  ebbing  of  her  peril,  that  he  should  speak 
of  it  with  something  approaching  indifference,  did  not 


OLD  CROW  455 

mean  that  he  had  relaxed  his  vigilance  over  her.  He  was 
not  thinking  of  her  with  any  disordered  warmth  of  sym 
pathy.  But  he  was  thinking.  Suddenly  she  spoke,  not 
knowing  what  she  was  going  to  say,  but  out  of  the  un 
conscious  part  of  her: 

"Rookie,  you  don't  want  anything  really,  do  you,  ex 
cept  to  stand  by  and  give  us  all  a  boost  when  we're 
down?" 

Raven  considered  a  moment. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said,  "precisely  what  I  do  want. 
If  you  told  me  Old  Crow  didn't  want  anything  but  giving 
folks  a  boost,  I'm  with  you  there.  He  actually  didn't. 
You  can  tell  from  his  book." 

"I  can't  seem  to  bear  it,"  said  Nan.  She  was  looking 
at  the  darkening  woods  and  her  wet  eyes  blurred  them 
more  than  the  falling  dusk.  "It  isn't  healthy.  It  isn't 
right.  I  want  you  to  want  things  like  fury,  and  I  don't 
know  whether  I  should  care  so  very  much  if  you  banged 
yourself  up  pretty  well  not  getting  them.  And  if  you 
actually  got  them !  O  Rookie !  I'd  be  so  glad." 

"You're  a  dear  child,"  said  Raven,  "a  darling  child." 
"That's  it,"  said  Nan.     "If  you  didn't  think  I  was  a 
child,  perhaps   you'd  want  me.      O  Rookie !  I  wish  you 
wanted  me!" 

Into  Raven's  mind  flashed  the  picture  of  Anne  on  her 
knees  beside  him  saying,  in  that  sharp  gasp  of  her  sorrow, 
"You  don't  love  me."  This  was  no  such  thing,  yet,  in 
some  phase,  was  life  going  to  repeat  itself  over  and  over 
in  the  endless  earth  journeys  he  might  have  to  make, 
futilities  of  mismated  minds,  the  outcry  of  defrauded 
souls?  But  at  least  this  wasn't  his  cowardly  silence  on 
the  heel  of  Anne's  gasping  cry.  He  could  be  honest  here, 
for  this  was  Nan. 

"My  darling,"  he  said,  "you're  nearer  to  me  than  any- 


456  OLD  CROW 

thing  in  this  world — or  out  of  it.  Don't  you  make  any 
mistake  about  that.  And  if  I  don't  want  things  'like  fury,' 
as  you  say,  it's  a  matter  of  the  calendar,  that's  all.  Dick 
wants  them  like  fury.  So  do  you.  I'm  an  old  chap,  dear. 
You  can't  set  back  the  clock." 

But  he  had  pushed  her  away,  as  his  aloofness  had 
pushed  Anne.  He  had  thrown  Anne  back  upon  her  humili 
ated  self.  He  had  tossed  Nan  forward  into  Dick's  genera 
tion  and  hers.  But  here  was  the  difference.  She  wasn't 
going  to  cry  out,  "You  don't  love  me."  Instead,  she 
turned  to  him,  shivering  a  little  and  drawing  her  scarf 
about  her  shoulders. 

"We'd  better  go  down,"  she  said.  "It's  getting  cold. 
Dick'll  be  wondering." 

They  got  up  and  Raven  set  the  chairs  inside  the  hut 
and  took  his  glance  about  to  see  if  all  was  in  order:  for 
he  did  not  abandon  the  unwilling  hope  that  Tira  might 
sometime  come.  As  they  went  down  the  hill  the  talk 
turned  to  the  hylas  and  the  spring,  but  when  they  reached 
the  house  Nan  did  not  go  in  to  Dick.  She  went  to  her  own 
room  and  lay  down  on  her  bed  and  thought  passionately 
of  leaving  Rookie  free.  How  was  it  possible?  Could  he 
be  free  while  she  was  bound?  Sometimes  of  late  she  had 
been  so  tired  that  she  could  conceive  of  no  refuge  but  wild 
and  reckless  outcry.  And  what  could  he  think  she  meant 
when  she  said:  "I  wished  you  wanted  me"? 


XLI 


Spring  came  on  fast  and  Nan,  partly  to  assure  Milly 
she  wasn't  to  be  under  foot  forever,  talked  of  opening  her 
house  and  beginning  to  live  there,  for  the  first  time  with 
out  Aunt  Anne.  But  she  predicted  it,  even  to  Milly,  with 
no  great  interest,  and  Raven,  though  he  had  urged  her  to 
run  away  from  the  cloudy  weather  Milly  and  Dick  made 
for  her,  protested  against  her  living  alone.  Dick  was 
now  strong  enough  to  walk  from  his  room  to  the  porch, 
and  Raven,  watching  him,  saw  in  him  a  greater  change 
than  the  languor  of  low  vitality.  He  had  the  bright- 
eyed  pallor  of  the  man  knocked  down  into  the  abyss  and 
now  crawling  up  a  few  paces  (only  a  few,  tremulous,  hesi 
tating)  to  get  his  foothold  on  the  ground  again.  He  was 
largely  silent,  not,  it  sometimes  seemed,  from  weakness, 
but  the  torpor  of  a  tired  mind.  He  was  responsive  to 
their  care  for  him,  ready  with  the  fitting  word  and  look 
and  yet,  underneath  the  good  manners  of  it  all,  patently 
acquiescent. 

Then  Nan  found  herself  rested,  suddenly,  in  the  way  of 
youth.  One  morning  she  got  up  quite  herself  again,  and 
wrote  her  housekeeper  to  assemble  servants  and  bring 
them  up,  and  told  Raven  he  couldn't  block  her  any  longer. 
She  had  done  it  for  herself,  and  she  quoted  the  over 
worked  commonplace  of  the  psychological  moment.  He, 
also  believing  in  the  moment,  refrained  from  argument 
and  went  over  to  open  doors  and  windows.  He  was 
curiously  glad  of  a  word  with  her  house,  not  so  much  to 

457 


458  OLD  CROW 

keep  up  old  acquaintance  as  to  ask  its  unresponsiveness 
whether  it  was  going  to  mean  Nan  alone  for  him  hence 
forth  or  whether,  at  a  time  like  this  when  he  stood 
interrogating  it,  Anne  Hamilton  also  stood  there,  in  her 
turn  interrogating  him.  Was  she  there  to-day?  Every 
thing  spoke  mutely  of  her,  the  wall-paper  she  had  prized 
for  its  ancient  quaintness,  the  furniture  in  the  lines  of 
grace  she  loved.  At  that  desk  she  had  sat,  slender  figure 
of  the  gentlewoman  of  a  time  older  than  her  own.  Was 
her  presence  so  etched  in  impalpable  tracery  on  the  air 
that  he  ought  to  feel  it?  Was  she  aching  with  defeated 
hopes  because  she  might  almost  be  expecting  him,  not  only 
to  remember  but  even  to  hear  and  see?  No  death  could 
be  more  complete  than  the  death  of  her  presence  here. 
He  could  not,  even  by  the  most  remorseful  determination, 
conjure  up  the  living  thought  of  her.  Somehow  it  had 
seemed  that  here  at  least  he  might  explain  himself  to  her, 
feel  that  he  had  made  himself  clear.  He  did  actually 
speak  to  her: 

"I  can't  do  it,  Anne.  Don't  you  see  I  can't?" 
This  was  what  he  had  meant  when  he  told  Nan  he  must 
get  hold  of  her.  What  place  could  be  so  fortunate  as 
this,  full  of  the  broken  threads  of  her  personality?  They 
only  needed  knitting  up  by  his  passionate  challenge,  to 
be  Anne.  He  called  upon  her,  he  caught  the  fluttering 
fringes  of  her  presence  in  his  trembling  hands.  But  he 
could  not  knit  them  up.  They  broke,  they  floated  away. 
It  seemed,  from  the  dead  unresponsiveness  of  her  house,  as 
if  there  had  never  been  any  Anne.  So  he  gave  it  up,  and, 
in  extreme  dullness  of  mind,  went  about  opening  windows, 
and  as  the  breeze  idled  in  and  stirred  the  waiting  air  and 
the  sunlight  rushed  to  it,  he  seemed  to  be  sweeping  the 
last  earthly  vestiges  of  her  from  the  place  that  had  known 
her  best.  And  at  once  it  appeared  to  him  that  he  had 


OLD  CROW  459 

done  an  inexorable,  perhaps  even  a  cruel  thing,  and  he 
hurried  out,  leaving  the  air  and  sun  to  be  more  merciful 
than  he. 

When  he  went  into  his  own  yard  he  saw  Dick  sitting 
under  the  western  pines,  where  Raven  had  set  a  couple  of 
chairs  and  had  a  hammock  swung.  Dick  had  ignored  the 
hammock.  He  scarcely  sat  at  ease,  and  Raven  had  an 
idea  he  was  meeting  discomfort  halfway,  with  the  idea 
of  making  himself  fit.  He  did  say  a  word  of  thanks  for 
the  chairs. 

"Only,"  he  added,  "don't  let  it  look  too  sociable. 
That'll  be  as  bad  as  the  porch."  He  laughed  a  little, 
and  concluded:  "I  don't  mean  you,  Jack.  You  know 
that,  don't  you?" 

Raven  guessed  he  was  allowing  himself  the  indulgence 
of  avoiding  his  mother.  For  now  Milly,  as  he  recovered, 
had  struggled  hard  for  her  lost  poise  and  regained  it,  in 
a  slightly  altered  form,  it  is  true;  but  still  she  had  it 
pretty  well  in  hand,  she  was  unweariedly  attentive  to  him 
and  inexorably  self-sacrificing  in  leaving  Nan  the  right 
of  way.  Her  life  had  again  become  a  severely  ritualistic 
social  enterprise,  but  now  she  was  just  far  enough  lack 
ing  in  spontaneity  to  fail  in  playing  her  game  as  prettily 
as  she  used.  It  was  tiring  to  watch,  chiefly  because  you 
could  see  how  it  tired  her  to  play. 

Raven  went  down  the  little  foot-path  to  Dick,  and  he 
thought  anew  how  illness  had  ravaged  him.  He  had  the 
tired  eyes,  the  hollow  cheek  of  ineffective  youth. 

"Hoping  you'd  come,"  said  Dick.  "Now,  where's 
Tenney?" 

"Tenney,"  said  Raven,  "is  at  home,  so  far  as  I  know. 
I  saw  him  last  night." 

"Go  up  there?" 

"Yes." 


460  OLD  CROW 

"What  for?" 

Raven  smiled  a  little,  as  if  he  found  himself  foolish  or 
at  best  incomprehensible. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  gave  him  every  chance  to  skip.  I 
hoped  he  would.  That  would  be  the  simplest  way  out. 
But  when  I  found  he  wasn't  going  to,  I  began  to  go 
there  every  night  to  let  him  see  I  was  keeping  an  eye  on 
him.  I  don't  go  in.  I  just  call  him  out  and  we  stare 
over  each  other's  heads  and  I  inform  him  you're  better  or 
not  so  well  (the  probation  dodge,  you  know)  and  he 
never  hears  me,  apparently,  and  then  I  go.  away.  I've  got 
used  to  doing  it.  Maybe  he's  got  used  to  having  it  done. 
Maybe  it's  a  relief  to  him.  I  don't  know." 

"Does  he  still  look  like  a  lunatic  at  large?" 

"More  or  less.  His  eyes  are  less  like  infuriated  shoe 
buttons,  but  on  the  whole  he  seems  to  have  quieted  a 
lot." 

"You  don't  suppose,"  said  Dick,  "you've  put  the  fear 
of  God  into  him?" 

"Not  much.  If  anybody  has,  it  was  you  when  he  saw 
you  topple  over  and  knew  he'd  got  the  wrong  man." 

"He  was  laying  for  you,  then,5'  said  Dick. 

"Why,  }Tes,"  said  Raven.  "Tira  was  there,  telling  me 
he'd  set  up  a  gun,  and  she'd  got  to  the  point  of  letting 
Nan  take  her  away,  when  he  fired.  What  the  dickens 
were  you  up  there  for,  anyhow?"  he  ended,  not  quite  able 
to  deny  himself  reassurance. 

"I'd  heard  he  was  out  with  a  gun,"  said  Dick  briefly. 
"Charlotte  told  me.  And  I  gathered  from  your  leaving 
word  for  Nan  that  the  Tenney  woman  was  there — at  the 
hut,  you  know." 

"Don't  say  'the  Tenney  woman,'  "  Raven  suggested. 
"I  can't  say  I  feel  much  like  calling  her  by  his  name  my 
self,  but  'the  Tenney  woman'  isn't  quite " 


OLD  CROW  461 

"No,"  said  Dick  temperately.  "All  right,  old  man,  I 
won't." 

"Awfully  sorry  you  got  it  instead  of  me,"  said  Raven, 
apparently  without  feeling.  He  had  wanted  to  say 
this  for  a  long  time.  "Wish  it  had  been  the  other  way 
round." 

"I  don't,  then,"  said  Dick,  gruffly  in  his  turn.  "It's 
been  an  eye-opener,  the  whole  business." 

"What' has?" 

"This."  He  evidently  meant  his  own  hurt  and  the  gen 
eral  viewpoint  induced  by  it.  "I'm  not  going  to  stay 
round  here,  you  know,"  he  continued,  presenting  this  as  a 
proposition  he  had  got  to  state  abruptly  or  not  at  all. 

"Why  not?" 

"I  don't  believe  I  could  say,"  Dick  temporized,  in  a 
way  that  suggested  he  didn't  mean  to  try.  "There's  Mum, 
you  know.  She's  going  to  be  at  me  again  to  go  in  for 
my  degree.  Oh,  yes,  she  will,  soon  as  she  thinks  I  won't 
come  unglued.  Well,  I  don't  want  it.  I  simply  don't. 
And  I  don't  want  what  she  calls  a  profession:  any  old 
thing,  you  know,  so  long  as  it's  a  profession.  I  couldn't 
go  in  for  that  either,  Jack.  If  I  do  anything,  it's  got  to 
be  on  my  own,  absolutely  on  my  own.  Fact  is,  I'd  like  to 
go  back  to  France." 

"Reconstruction?"  Raven  suggested,  after  a  minute. 

"Maybe.  Not  that  I'm  specially  valuable.  Only  it 
would  be  something  to  get  my  teeth  into." 

Was  this,  too,  Raven  wondered,  an  aftermath  of  the 
War?  Had  it  shaken  the  atoms  of  his  young  purpose  too 
far  astray  for  them  ever  to  cohere  again?  Dick  had  had 
one  purpose.  Even  that  didn't  seem  to  be  surviving,  in 
any  operative  form. 

"Writing?"  he  suggested.     "Oxford— and  poetry?" 

Dick  shook  his  head. 


462  OLD  CROW 

"Well,"  said  Raven,  "if  it's  France  then,  maybe  I'll  go 
with  YOU/' 

Dick  smiled  slightly.     Did  his  lip  tremble? 

"No,"  he  said,  at  once,  as  if  he'd  been  waiting  for  it, 
"you  stay  here  and  look  after  Nan." 

This  gave  Raven  the  slightest   opening. 

"That's  the  devil  of  it,"  he  said,  "your  leaving  Xan." 

"Yes,"  said  Dick  quietly,  his  eyes  on  an  orchard  tree 
where  an  unseen  robin  sang,  "Pm  leaving  her." 

"She's  been  devoted  to  you."  Raven  ventured. 

"Quite  so.     I've  been  lying  there  and  seeing " 

He  paused  and  Raven  prompted: 

"Seeing  what?" 

Dick  finished,  with  a  deeper  quiet : 

"Seeing  her  look  at  you." 

Raven,  too,  stared  at  the  tree  where  the  robin  kept  up 
the  bright  beauty  of  his  lay.  He  was  conscious,  not  of 
any  need  to  combat  this  finality  of  Dick's,  but  of  a  sense, 
more  poignant  than  he  could  support  without  calling  on 
his  practiced  endurance,  of  the  pity  of  it,  the  "tears  of 
things."  Here  was  youth,  its  first  bitter  draught  in 
hand,  not  recoiling  from  it,  but  taking  it  with  the  calm 
ness  of  the  older  man  who  has  fewer  years  to  taste  it  in. 
He  could  not  ask  the  boy  to  consider,  to  make  no  hasty 
judgment.  Whatever  lay  behind  the  words,  it  was  some 
thing  of  a  grave  consequence.  And  Dick  himself  led  the 
way  out  of  the  slough  where  they  were  both  caught. 

"Curious  things  come  to  you,"  he  said,  "when  you're 
laid  by  the  heels  and  can't  do  anything  but  think :  I  mean, 
as  soon  as  you  get  the  nerve  to  think." 

"Such  as?" 

"Well,  poetry,  for  one  thing.  When  I  began  to  think 
— and  I  didn't  want  it  to  be  about  Xan  any  more  than  I 
could  help — I  used  to  have  a  temperature,  you  know — 


OLD  CROW 


I  made  my  mind  ran  away  frtzi  it.  I  said  Fd  think 
poetry,  my  long  poem.  Fd  fie  there  and  say  it  over  to 
myself,  and  see  if  the  ret  of  ft  wodUnt  one.9  He 
l*agbed  a  little,  thoogh  not  bitterly.  He  was  frankly 
••••ul  "What  do  you  think?  I  e*jnkm*t  «rem  iimim 

.  AL_  _  .'  .  ___   -  .   ^     -•_'__  TT;  ..  .     ~      _____  "   -      .  -"-   .  ^.    -"-  ___  ..-   . 

__  »  -  _^  ^___-  —  -_  _  .        •B«J%-  j    CO^UO.  OUaCx    UCU^UEY  •    ^^HC 

Tcne  Fd  d^pf^  Wasn't  that  the  finft?  Omar  Khay- 
yam!  I  lay  there  and  timLmUiid  ft  by  the  yaid.^ 

-That's  "easy,"  said  Bara.  -Xothimg  Eke  fint  im- 
pRswms,  Theystick.9 

-Evidently,"  said  Dick.     "They  o5d  stick.     ABA*  my 


^__  .  ;•• 

Dick  aa&wml  promptly,   tnmigh  fiaren  could  only 
wonder,  after  alL  just  what  he 

a  c&se  against  me."    He 

iOotlOQLS     O&nCOmVJPQ.     CQHnH%2^        MT" 

ragmbond  robin  s»aggeting  Acre,  real 
found  so  much  leisore  to  sing  about 
sa j  I  ifidnt  get  yoa  that  time  when 
utetty  moch  done  with  the  world.     I 
rign  t :  cfffanl,  yon  remember.    Bat  F 

Raven  looked  at  him  in  a  wife*  sh 
First  Old  Crow,  thai  he,  t 


aDon*t  jon  go  that  path,  old  man 
onl    lose  TOUT  war  and  have  to  come 


zYes.     Old  Crow  did. 


464  OLD  CROW 

lengcd  the  whole  business,  and  then  he  swung  round  to 
adoring  it  all,  the  world  and  Whoever  made  it.  He  didn't 
understand  it  a  whit  better,  but  he  believed,  he  accepted, 
he  adored." 

"What  would  you  say?"  Dick  asked  curiously,  after  a 
moment.  "Just  what  happened  to  him?" 

"Why,  I  suppose,"  said  Raven,  "in  the  common  phrase, 
he  found  God." 

They  were  silent  for  a  time  and  both  of  them  tried 
desperately  to  think  of  the  vagabond  robin.  Raven,  his 
mind  released  by  this  fascination  of  dwelling  on  Dick 
apart  from  any  responsibility  of  talking  to  him,  found  it 
running  here,  there,  back  and  forth,  over  these  weeks  of 
their  stay  together.  It  halted,  it  ran  on,  it  stopped  again 
to  consider,  but  always  it  was  of  Dick  and  incidentally 
of  himself  who  didn't  matter  so  much,  but  who  had  to  be 
in  it  all.  Were  they  at  one  in  this  epidemic  of  world  sick 
ness?  As  the  great  explosive  forces  of  destruction  and 
decay  seemed  to  have  released  actual  germs  to  attack 
the  physical  well-being  of  races,  had  the  terrible  crashes 
of  spiritual  destinies  unsettled  the  very  air  of  life,  poisoned 
it,  drugged  it  with  madness  and  despair?  Was  there  a 
universal  disease  of  the  mind,  following  this  wholesale 
slaughter,  which  the  human  animal  hadn't  been  able  really 
to  bear  though  it  had  come  to  a  lull  in  it,  so  that  now  it 
was,  in  sheer  shrieking  panic,  clutching  at  its  various  anti 
dotes  to  keep  on  living?  One  antidote  was  forgctfulness. 
They  were  forgetting  the  War,  some  thousands  of  decent 
folk  who  clearly  had  meant  to  remember.  A  horrible  anti 
dote  that,  but  perhaps  they  had  to  take  it  to  save  them 
selves.  Too  big  a  price  to  pay  for  living  (and  such  thread- 
paper  lives!)  but  still  there  did  seem  to  be  a  prejudice  in 
favor  of  the  mere  drawing  of  breath.  Maybe  you  couldn't 
blame  them,  spinning  in  the  sunshine  like  insects  of  a  day. 


OLD  CROW  465 

Some  of  the  others  had  to  save  themselves  by  the  wildness 
of  a  new  intoxication.  They  danced,  their  spirits  danced : 
a  carmagnole  it  was,  a  dance  of  death,  the  death  of  the 
spirit  as  he  saw  it.  But  maybe,  with  this  preposterous 
love  of  life  in  them  they,  too,  had  to  do  it.  Maybe  you 
couldn't  blame  them.  He  and  Dick — they  had  been  like 
two  children,  scared  out  of  their  wits,  crying  out,  hitting 
at  each  other  in  the  dark.  Youth  and  age,  that  was  what 
they  had  fought  about.  It  had  been  an  unseemly  scrap,  a 
"you're  another."  Dick  had  been  brought  up  against  life 
as  it  looks  when  you  see  it  naked,  the  world — and  what  a 
world !  No  wonder  he  swore  it  was  a  world  such  as  neither 
he  nor  his  fellows,  like  him  aghast,  would  have  made.  He 
would  simply  have  to  live  some  quarter  century  to  find 
out  what  sort  of  a  world  he  and  his  fellows  did  actually 
make. 

And  Raven:  Lord!  Lord!  what  was  the  use  of  having 
traveled  his  own  quarter  century  along  the  everlasting 
road  if  it  didn't  make  him  at  least  silent  in  sheer  pity  of 
it:  youth  singing  along  to  the  Dark  Tower,  jingling  spurs 
and  caracoling  nag,  something  it  didn't  quite  know  the  feel 
ing  of  shut  in  its  nervous  hand?  What  was  it  shut  there? 
The  key,  that  was  it :  the  key  to  the  Dark  Tower.  Youth 
made  no  doubt  it  was  the  key,  easy  to  hold,  quick  to  turn, 
and  the  gate  would  fly  open  and,  if  youth  judged  best, 
even  the  walls  would  fall.  And  yet,  and  yet,  hasn't  all 
youth  held  the  key  for  that  borrowed  interval  and  do  the 
walls  ever  really  fall?  But  if  age  doesn't  know  enough 
to  include  youth  in  its  understanding,  as  youth  (except 
the  poets)  couldn't  possibly  include  age,  why  then! 

"I  am,"  thought  Raven,  returning  to  the  Charlottian 
vernacular,  "very  small  potatoes  and  few  in  a  hill." 

And  what  was  the  Dick,  the  permanent  Dick  who  would 
remain  after  a  few  more  years  had  stripped  him  of  the 


466  OLD  CROW 

merely  imitative  coloring  he  caught  from  his  fellows? 
Dick  talked  about  "herd  madness,"  and  here  was  he,  at 
one  with  his  own  herd.  He  piped  in  verse  because  a  few 
could  sing,  he — but  what  was  the  use  hammering  along 
on  the  old  dissonance:  youth,  age,  age,  youth.  And  yet 
they  needn't  be  dissonant.  They  weren't  always.  There 
was  Nan!  But  as  to  Dick,  he  was  simply  Dick,  a  good 
substratum  of  his  father,  Anthony  Powell,  in  him,  a  man 
who  had  had  long  views  on  trade  and  commerce  and  could 
manage  men.  And  a  streak  of  Raven,  not  too  much  but 
enough  to  imagine  the  great  things  the  Powell  streak 
would  show  him  how  to  put  his  hand  to. 

Dick  had  been  staring  at  him,  finding  him  a  long  way 
off,  and  now  he  spoke,  shyly  if  still  curiously: 

"Would  you  say  you'd  found  God?" 

Raven  came  back ;  he  considered. 

"No,"  he  said,  at  last,  "I  couldn't  say  anything  of  the 
sort :  it  sounds  like  such  awful  swank.  But  I  rather  stand 
in  with  Old  Crow.  The  fact  is,  Dick" — it  was  almost 
impossible  to  get  this  clarified  in  his  own  mind  to  the  point 
of  passing  it  on — "Old  Crow's  made  me  feel  somehow — 
warm.  As  if  there's  a  continuity,  you  know.  As  if  they 
keep  a  hand  on  us,  the  generations  that  have  passed.  If 
that's  so,  we  needn't  be  so  infernally  lonesome,  now  need 
we?" 

"Well,"  said  Dick,  "we  are  pretty  much  alone." 

"But  we  needn't  be,"  said  Raven,  painfully  sticking 
to  his  text,  "because  there  are  the  generations.  The  be 
ing  loyal  to  what  the  generations  tried  to  build  up,  what 
they  demand  of  us.  And  behind  the  whole  caboodle  of  'em, 
there's  something  else,  something  bigger,  something 
warmer  still.  Really,  you  know,  if  only  as  a  matter  of 
convenience,  we  might  call  it — God." 

A  silence  came  here  and  he  rather  forgot  Dick  in  fan- 


OLD  CROW  467 

tastically  thinking  how  you  might  have  to  climb  to  the 
shoulders  of  a  man  (Old  Crow's,  for  instance)  to  make 
your  leap  to  God.  You  couldn't  do  it  from  the  ground. 
Dick  had  taken  off  his  glasses  to  wipe  them  and  Raven, 
recalling  himself  and  glancing  up,  found  his  eyes  suffused 
and  soft. 

"Jackie,"  said  Dick,  "you're  a  great  old  sport." 


XLH 

The  spring  had  two  voices  for  Tira,  the  voice  of  a 
fainting  hope  and  the  voice  of  fear.  The  days  grew  so 
capriciously  lovely  that  her  heart  tried  a  few  notes  in 
answer,  and  she  would  stand  at  her  door  and  look  off 
over  the  mountain,  fancying  herself  back  there  on  the 
other  side  with  the  spirit  of  girlhood  in  her,  drawing  her, 
in  spite  of  dreary  circumstances,  to  run,  to  throw  her 
self  on  the  ground  by  cool  violet  banks  to  dream  and  wake, 
all  flushed  and  trembling,  and  know  she  must  not  tell 
that  dream.  But  when  the  dusk  came  down  and  the  hylas 
peeped  and  the  moist  air  touched  her  cheek,  she  would  lose 
courage  and  her  heart  beat  miserably  in  tune  with  the 
melancholy  of  spring.  Still,  on  the  whole,  she  was  coin 
ing  alive,  and  no  one  knew  better  than  she  that  life,  to  be 
life,  must  be  also  a  matter  of  pain.  Tenney  was  leaving 
her  to  a  great  extent  free.  He  was  off  now,  doing  his 
fencing,  and  he  would  even,  returning  at  noon  or  night, 
forget  to  fall  into  the  exaggerated  limp  he  kept  in  reserve 
to  remind  her  of  his  grievance.  She  had  not  seen  Raven 
for  a  long  time  now,  except  as  he  and  Nan  went  by, 
always  looking  at  the  house,  once  or  twice  halting  a 
moment  in  the  road,  as  if  debating  whether  they  should 
call.  And  Tira,  when  she  saw  them,  from  her  hidin^  be 
hind  the  curtain,  would  step  to  the  door  and  fasten  it 
against  them.  She  would  not  answer,  she  told  herself,  if 
they  knocked.  But  they  never  did  knock.  They  went  on 
and  left  her  to  her  chosen  loneliness.  For  an  instant  she 

468 


OLD  CROW  469 

would  be  unreasonably  hurt,  and  then  smile  at  herself, 
knowing  it  was  she  who  had  denied  them. 

It  was  an  April  morning  when  the  spring  so  got  into 
her  blood  that  she  began  to  wish  for  things.  They  were 
simple  things  she  wished  for:  chiefly  to  feel  herself  active 
in  the  air  and  sun.  She  wanted  to  go  away,  to  tire  her 
self  out  with  motion,  and  she  made  up  her  mind  that,  if 
Tenney  went  to  the  long  pasture  fencing,  she  would  shut 
the  house  and  run  off  with  the  baby  into  the  woods.  The 
baby  was  heavy  now,  but  to-day,  in  her  fullness  of 
strength,  his  weight  was  nothing  to  her.  They  might 
even  go  over  to  Mountain  Brook  by  the  path  "  'cross 
lots"  where  the  high  stepping  stones  led  to  the  track 
round  the  mountain.  She  loved  the  look  of  the  stepping 
stones  in  spring  when  the  river  swirled  about  them  and 
they  dared  you  to  cross  and  then  jeered  at  you  because 
the  water  foamed  and  threatened.  She  sang  a  little,  fin 
ishing  her  morning  tasks,  and  Tenney,  coming  from  the 
barn  with  his  axe,  to  start  on  his  day's  fencing,  heard  her 
sing.  Tira,  when  she  saw  him,  was  in  such  haste  to  be  off 
herself  that  she  called  to  him  from  the  window : 

"Here !  don't  you  forget  your  luncheon.  I've  got  it 
'most  put  up." 

He  glanced  back  over  his  shoulder,  and  spoke  curtly: 
"I  don't  want  it.  I'm  goin'  over  on  the  knoll." 
Her  heart  fell.  The  day  was  done.  She  would  have  to 
stay  and  get  his  dinner.  Even  an  hour's  vagabondage 
would  be  impossible,  for  the  knoll  was  across  the  road 
overlooking  the  house  and  he  would  see  her  go.  All  these 
weeks  she  had  held  herself  to  a  strict  routine,  so  that 
every  minute  could  be  accounted  for.  This  day  only  she 
had  meant  to  break  her  habit  and  run.  It  was  over  then. 
She  was  bitterly  disappointed,  as  if  this,  she  thought, 
smiling  a  little  to  herself,  was  the  only  day  there  was. 


470  OLD  GROW 

She  might  as  well  wash  blankets.  She  went  to  the  bed 
room  to  slip  off  her  dress  and  put  on  a  thick  short-sleeved 
apron:  for  Tira  was  not  of  those  delicate-handed  house 
wives  who  can  wash  without  splashing.  She  dripped,  in 
the  process,  as  if,  Tenney  used  to  tell  her  in  the  first  days 
of  their  marriage,  she  got  in  all  over.  In  her  bedroom, 
with  the  sweet  air  on  her  bare  arms  and  the  robins  calling 
and  the  general  tumult  and  busy  ecstasy  outside,  she 
stopped  to  wonder.  Could  she  take  the  baby  and  slip 
out  by  the  side  door,  and  come  back  in  time  to  fry  Ten 
ney 's  ham  for  dinner?  No,  it  wouldn't  do.  He  would  be 
in  for  a  drink,  or  the  cow  shut  up  in  the  barn  with  her 
calf  would  "loo"  and  he  would  wonder  if  anything  was 
happening  to  them.  A  dozen  things  might  come  up  to  call 
him  back.  She  would  wash  blankets.  Then  she  saw  the 
baby,  through  the  doorway,  sitting  where  she  had  put 
him,  on  the  kitchen  rug,  and  a  quick  anger  for  him  pos 
sessed  her. 

"In  that  hot  kitchen,"  she  said  aloud,  "when  there's 
all  out-doors !" 

She  dragged  one  of  the  blankets  from  the  bed,  ran  out 
as  she  was,  bare-armed,  bare-necked,  and  spread  it  on  the 
grass  in  front  of  the  house. 

"It's  goin'  to  be  washed  anyways,"  she  placated  the 
housewifely  instinct  within  her,  and  she  ran  in  for  the 
baby  and  set  him  on  the  blanket.  One  heart-breaking 
thing  about  this  baby  who  was  "not  right"  was  that  there 
were  no  answers  in  him.  She  had  tried  all  the  wiles  of 
motherhood  to  show  him  how  she  loved  him,  and  coax  him 
to  respond,  not  so  much  in  actual  sentience  to  her  as  a 
baby's  rejoinder  to  the  world  he  could  see  and  touch.  He 
had  no  answers.  But  this  morning  when  the  sun  fell 
warmly  on  him  and  the  breeze  stirred  his  coppery  hair,  he 
did,  it  seemed,  hear  for  an  instant  the  voice  of  earth. 


OLD  CROW  471 

He  put  out  his  fat  hands  and  gurgled  into  a  laugh.  Tira 
went  mad.  She  was  immediately  possessed  by  an  over 
whelming  desire  to  hear  him  laugh  again.  She  called  to 
him,  in  little  cooing  shouts,  she  stretched  out  her  arms  to 
him,  and  then,  when  he  would  not  be  persuaded  even  to 
turn  his  head  to  her,  she  began  to  dance.  Perhaps  after 
the  first  step  she  really  forgot  about  him.  Perhaps  the 
mother  ecstasy  ran  into  the  ecstasy  of  spring.  Perhaps, 
since  she  could  not  answer  the  lure  of  the  woods  by  run 
ning  to  them  that  morning,  the  woods  ran  to  her,  the 
green  magic  of  them,  and  threw  their  spell  on  her.  She 
hardly  saw  what  was  about  her,  even  the  child.  The 
cherry  tree  in  bloom  was  a  great  whiteness  at  her  right, 
the  sun  was  a  splendor,  the  breeze  stirred  her  hair,  and 
the  child's  head  was  a  coppery  ball  she  fixed  her  eyes 
upon.  And  while  she  waved  her  arms  and  danced,  Mar 
tin,  who  had  seen  her  from  the  road,  and  left  his  horse 
there,  was  coming  toward  her  across  the  grass.  Why 
could  she  not  have  seen  him  stop?  Why  was  he  nothing 
more  than  a  tree  trunk  in  the  woods,  standing  there  while 
she  flung  up  her  white  arms  and  danced?  The  earth 
spirits  may  know.  Pan  might  know.  They  had  got  Tira 
that  day,  released  from  her  winter's  chill.  She  did  not, 
and  still  less  Martin,  his  own  blood  rising  with  every 
pulse. 

"Hooray!"  he  yelled.  "That's  the  talk." 
He  made  a  stride  and  Tira  darted  back.  But  it  was 
not  she  he  ran  toward.  It  was  the  child.  He  bent  to  the 
baby,  caught  him  up  and  tossed  him  knowingly  and  the 
baby,  again  incredibly,  laughed.  Tira,  taken  aback  at  the 
sight  of  Martin,  like  a  sudden  cloud  on  her  day,  was  ar 
rested,  in  her  first  rush  toward  him,  by  the  pretty  laugh. 
Her  baby  in  Martin's  hands :  that  was  calamity  unspeak 
able.  But  the  child  had  laughed.  She  would  hardly  have 


472  OLD  CROW 

known  what  price  she  would  refuse  even  to  the  most 
desperate  of  evil  spirits  that  could  conjure  up  that  laugh. 
She  stood  there  breathless  waiting  on  the  moment,  afraid 
of  the  event  yet  not  daring  to  interrupt  it,  and  Martin 
tossed  the  baby  and  the  baby  laughed  again,  as  if  it  were 
"right."  For  Martin  himself,  except  as  the  instrument 
of  the  miracle,  she  had  hardly  a  thought.  It  might  have 
been  a  hand  out  of  heaven  that  had  caught  up  the  child, 
a  hand  from  hell.  But  the  child  laughed.  Martin,  for 
the  interval,  was  neither  malevolent  nor  calculating.  This 
was  not  one  of  his  impish  pleasantries.  It  might  have 
been  in  the  beginning,  but  he  was  enormously  flattered  at 
having  touched  the  spring  of  that  gurgling  delight.  For 
this  was,  he  knew,  a  solemn  baby.  He  had  glanced  at  it, 
when  he  came  Tira's  way,  but  only  carelessly  and  with  no 
idea  it  was  not  like  all  babies.  He  supposed  they  began 
to  take  notice  sometime,  when  they  got  good  and  ready. 
Queer  little  devils !  But  he  was  as  vain  and  eager  in  his 
enjoyment  of  the  response  to  his  own  charm  as  he  was 
prodigal  in  using  it.  The  spring  day  had  got  into  his 
blood,  too,  and  when  he  saw  Tira  dancing,  the  baby  a 
part  of  the  bright  picture,  he  had  taken  the  little  devil 
up,  with  no  purpose  but  somehow  because  it  seemed  nat 
ural,  and  when  the  child  laughed  he  knew  he  had  made  a 
hit  and  kept  on,  singing  now,  not  a  cradle  song  but  a 
man's  song,  something  he  had  not  himself  thought  of 
since  he  heard  his  old  grandmother  drone  it  between 
smokes,  while  she  sat  by  the  fire  and  dreamed  of  times 
past.  It  was  something  about  Malbrook — "gone  to  the 
army" — "hope  he  never'll  come  back."  And  there  was 
Tira  now,  within  the  circle  of  his  fascination,  bending  a 
little  toward  him,  her  eyes  darker  than  he  had  seen  them 
for  many  a  day,  her  white  arms  wide,  as  if  she  invited 
him.  He  wondered  how  a  woman  with  her  black  hair  could 


OLD  CROW  475 

have  a  skin  so  white ;  but  he  never  guessed  the  lovely  arms 
were  stretched  toward  the  child  and  not  to  him,  and  that 
they  would  have  snatched  the  baby  but  for  that  amazing 
laugh.  He  stopped,  breathless  more  from  his  thoughts 
than  his  gay  exertion,  and  gave  a  shout. 

"Here!"  he  cried,  to  Tira,  in  a  joviality  of  finding  her 
at  one  with  him  and  the  day  (this  first  prime  day  of 
spring,  a  day  that  ought  to  make  a  person  shake  a  leg), 
"you  take  him.  Fine  little  chap !  Set  him  on  the  ground 
ag'in  an'  you  an'  me'll  have  a  tell." 

Tira  took  the  step  toward  him  and  lifted  her  arms  for 
the  child.  She  was  glad  the  wild  game  had  ended.  Mar 
tin  put  the  baby  into  her  arms,  but  instantly  she  felt  his 
hands  on  her  elbows,  holding  her. 

"Guess  that's  the  way  to  git  you,  ain't  it?"  he  inquired, 
in  jovial  good  humor.  "You  can't  scratch  with  the 
youngster  between  us.  You  can't  cut  an'  run.  By  thun 
der,  Tira !  you're  as  handsome  as  you  were  that  day  I  see 
you  first  an'  followed  you  home?  Remember?  You're 
like" — his  quick  mind  saw  it  at  a  leap — "you're  like  this 
cherry  tree,  all  a-bloom." 

He  bent  his  head  to  her  arm,  almost  as  white  as  the 
cherry  bloom  and  kissed  it.  A  shadow  dropped  upon 
them.  It  was  only  a  little  sailing  cloud  but  it  startled 
Tira  more  than  the  kiss ;  the  look  of  the  day  had  changed 
so  suddenly  and  as  if  it  were  changing  for  them  alone. 
For  there  outside  was  the  bright  affluence  of  spring  just 
as  it  had  been  but  over  them  the  warning  cloud.  She 
glanced  about,  in  the  one  instant  of  darkening,  and  on 
the  knoll  across  the  road  saw  what  the  kind  little  cloud 
might  have  been  sent  to  tell  her.  Tenney  stood  there,  a 
stark  figure,  watching  them.  Her  numbness  to  the  pres 
ence  of  Martin  who  stood  holding  her  broke  in  a  throb  of 
fear.  The  instant  before,  his  lips  on  her  arm  had  been 


474  OLD  CROW 

no  more  than  the  touch  of  a  leaf  that  might  have  blown 
there.  She  did  not  even  remember  it.  She  lifted  her  face 
to  his  and,  seeing  the  fear  in  it,  he  involuntarily  released 
her  and  she  stepped  away  from  him. 

"You  go,"  she  said.  "Go  quick.  He's  over  there  on 
the  knoll.  My  God !  don't  look.  Don't  you  know  no  bet- 
ter'n  to  look?  He's  fencin'.  He's  got  his  axe." 

But  Martin  had  looked.  He  gave  a  little  disconcerted 
laugh  and  turned  away. 

"So  long !"  he  called  back  over  his  shoulder.  "Glad  the 
little  chap  took  to  me.  Have  him  out  here  an'  whenever 
I'm  goin'  by- 
She  did  not  hear.  She  had  run,  as  if  from  nearing 
danger,  into  the  house  and  closed  the  door  behind  her. 
It  was  warmer  even  in  the  few  minutes  since  she  had  come 
out,  but  she  had  lost  her  delight  in  the  open.  She  was 
afraid,  and  as  Martin  stepped  into  his  wagon,  he  wondered 
why.  Tira  was  a  good,  strong,  husky  girl,  a  streak  of  the 
gypsy  in  her.  Sometimes  in  the  old  days  he'd  been  half 
afraid  of  her  himself  when  things  didn't  suit,  mostly  after 
he  got  carrying  on  with  some  other  girl.  The  way  her 
eyes  opened  on  a  chap!  Why  didn't  she  open  'em  that 
way  on  Tenney?  Queer  proposition,  a  woman  was,  any 
ways. 

Tira  carried  the  baby  into  the  front  room  and  sat 
down  by  the  window,  still  holding  him.  She  pushed  her 
chair  back  until  the  curtain  hid  her  and,  through  the 
narrow  strip  between  curtain  and  casing,  kept  her  eyes 
on  Tenney.  For  several  minutes  after  Martin  had  driven 
away,  he  stood  there,  still  as  a  tree.  Then  the  tree  came 
alive.  Tenney  moved  back  to  the  left,  where  the  fence 
ran  between  field  and  pasture,  and  she  lost  him.  But  she 
could  not  hear  his  axe.  In  her  anxiety  she  strained  the 
child  against  her  until  he  struggled  and  gave  a  fitful  cry. 


OLD  CROW  475 

She  did  not  heed  the  cry.  This,  her  instinct  told  her, 
was  the  only  safe  place  for  him  on  earth:  his  mother's 
arms. 

All  through  the  morning  she  sat  there,  looking  now 
and  then  from  the  window,  and  still  holding  the  child. 
When  the  clock  struck  eleven,  the  sound  awoke  her.  If 
she  was  to  get  dinner,  she  must  be  about  it.  Was  she  to 
get  dinner?  Or  was  she  to  assume  that  this  day  marked 
the  settlement  of  the  long  account?  The  house  itself,  still 
in  its  morning  disorder,  told  her  the  moment  had  come. 
The  house  itself,  it  seemed  to  whisper,  could  not  possibly 
go  on  listening  to  the  things  it  had  listened  to  through  the 
winter  or  holding  itself  against  the  horror  of  the  more 
horrible  silence.  Who  would  think  of  eating  on  the 
verge  of  this  last  inevitable  settlement?  And  what  would 
the  settlement  be?  What  was  there — she  thought  over  the 
enemies  she  had  feared.  The  crutch:  that  was  gone.  She 
had  made  sure  of  that.  The  gun:  but  if  it  were  here  she 
doubted  whether  Tenney  would  dare  even  look  at  it  again, 
remembering  that  night  when  he  washed  at  the  invisible 
stain  on  his  hands.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  had  gone  in 
these  imaginings,  and  then  she  did  get  up,  went  into  the 
kitchen,  built  her  fire,  and  set  the  table.  But  as  she 
moved  about  the  room,  she  carried  the  baby  with  her, 
working  awkwardly  against  his  weight  and  putting  him 
down  for  a  minute  only  at  a  time  and  snatching  him  up 
again  at  an  unexpected  sound.  Once  a  robin  called  just 
outside  the  window,  a  bold  bright  note;  it  might  have 
been  the  vagabond  robin  from  Raven's  orchard  who  sang 
about  nests  but  seemed  never  to  break  off  singing  long 
enough  to  find  a  straw  for  one.  She  caught  up  the  child 
from  the  couch  and  stood  breathless,  listening.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  robin  knew,  and  somehow,  like  Martin, 
felt  like  laughing  at  her. 


476  OLD  CROW 

Tenney  was  there,  at  a  few  minutes  after  twelve,  but 
dinner  was  not  on  time.  He  came  in,  washed  his  hands 
at  the  sink  and  glanced  about  him.  The  table  was  set, 
and  Tira,  at  the  stove,  the  child  on  her  hip,  was  trying  the 
potatoes.  She  did  not  look  at  him.  If  he  looked  strange, 
it  seemed  to  her  she  might  not  be  able  to  go  on. 

"I  ain't  dished  up,"  she  said.     "I'm  kinder  late." 

Tenney  spoke  immediately  and  his  voice  sounded  merely 
quiet,  not,  she  reasoned  anxiously,  as  if  he  tried  to  make  it 
so,  but  just — quiet. 

"You  ain't  washed  the  breakfast  dishes  neither.  Ain't 
you  feelin'  well?" 

"Yes,"  said  Tira,  "well  as  common.  I  left  'em,  that's 
all." 

"Oh,"  said  Tenney.     "Wanted  to  git  at  suthin'  else." 

She  turned  and  looked  at  him.  Yes,  he  was  different, 
not  paler,  nor,  as  she  had  seen  him,  aflame  in  a  livid  way, 
but  different. 

"Isr'el,"  she  said,  "I  never  knew  'Gene  Martin  was  goin' 
to  stop  here.  I  knew  no  more'n  the  dead." 

"Was  that  him?"  asked  Tenney  indifferently.  "I  see 
somebody  stopped.  I  thought  mebbe  'twas  the  butcher. 
Then  I  remembered  he  comes  of  a  Wednesday." 

That  settled  it  in  her  mind.  The  weekly  call  of  the 
butcher  was  as  fixed  as  church  on  Sunday.  Tenney  was 
playing  for  something,  and  she  understood.  The  moment 
had  come.  The  house  and  she  both  knew  it.  She  was  not 
sorry,  and  perhaps,  though  she  had  been  good  to  it  and 
kept  it  in  faithful  order,  the  house  was  not  sorry  either. 
Perhaps  it  would  rather  rest  and  fall  into  disorder  the 
way  Tenney  would  let  it,  if  he  were  here  alone.  That 
was  it.  He  had  had  enough  of  threats  that  made  him 
sick  with  the  reaction  of  nervous  violence.  He  had  had 
enough  of  real  violence  that  recoiled  on  himself  and  made 


OLD  CROW  477 

him  cower  under  the  shadow  of  the  law.  He  was  going 
to  turn  her  out  of  the  house,  the  baby  with  her.  And  he 
did  not  seem  to  be  suffering  much  over  it,  now  he  had 
made  up  his  mind.  Perhaps,  now  that  the  scene  of  the 
morning — three  together  in  May  sunshine — had  confirmed 
his  ugly  doubts,  he  was  relieved  to  wash  his  hands  of 
them  both.  The  phrase  came  into  her  mind,  and  that  in 
itself  startled  her  more  than  any  fear  of  him.  Wash  his 
hands !  How  pitiful  he  had  been  that  night  he  washed 
his  hands ! 

They  sat  down  to  dinner  together,  and  though  Tira 
could  not  eat,  she  made  pretense  of  being  too  busy,  get 
ting  up  from  the  table  for  this  and  that,  and  brewing  her 
self  a  cup  of  tea.  Tenney  had  coffee  left  over  from  break 
fast,  and  when  her  tea  was  done  she  drank  it  hastily, 
standing  at  the  sink  where  she  could  spill  a  part  of  it 
unnoticed.  And  when  dinner  was  over  he  went  peaceably 
away  to  the  knoll  again,  and  she  hastily  set  the  house  in 
order  while  the  baby  slept. 

When  Tenney  came  home  he  was  quite  the  same,  silent 
but  unmoved,  and  after  milking  he  took  off  his  boots  by 
the  stove  and  seemed  to  doze,  while  Tira  strained  the  milk 
and  washed  her  dishes.  She  was  still  sure  that  she  and 
the  child  were  to  go.  When  would  it  be?  Would  the 
warning  come  quickly?  She  wanted  to  leave  the  waiting 
house  in  order,  the  house  that  seemed  to  know  so  much 
more  about  it  all  than  she  did.  The  fire  had  gone  down  in 
the  stove,  but  though  the  night  was  warm,  Tenney  still 
sat  by  the  hearth,  huddled  now  in  his  chair,  as  if  he  wanted 
the  comforting  of  that  special  spot :  the  idea  of  the  hearth 
stone,  the  beneficence  of  man's  cooking  place,  lira's  mind 
was  on  the  night,  the  warmth  of  it,  the  moist  cool  breath 
bringing  the  hylas'  peeping.  It  made  her  melancholy  as 
spring  nights  always  had,  even  when  she  was  most  happy. 


478  OLD  CROW 

She  thought  of  the  willows  feathering  out  on  the  road  to 
her  old  home,  and  how  the  sight  of  them  against  the  sky, 
that  and  the  distant  frogs,  made  her  throat  thick  with  the 
clamor  of  a  rising  fear.  The  river  road  was  the  one  she 
would  take  when  she  was  turned  out,  even  if  the  willows 
did  look  at  her  as  she  went  by  and  lay  that  moist,  cool 
hand  of  foreboding  on  her  heart.  She  had  a  plan,  sprung 
together  like  the  pieces  of  a  puzzle  since  she  had  known 
he  was  to  send  her  away.  There  was  a  sawmill  over  the 
other  side  of  the  mountain  and  the  men's  boarding  house. 
She  could  get  work  there.  It  would  be  strange  if  a  woman 
so  strong  and  capable  could  not  get  work. 

Tenney  stirred  in  his  chair,  roused  himself  from  his 
huddled  posture  and  got  up.  Was  he  going  to  tell  her 
now? 

"I  guess  mebbe  I'll  poke  off  to  bed,"  he  said,  in  his 
commonplace  manner  of  that  noon.  "I've  got  to  be  up 
bright  an'  early." 

"Ain't  you  finished  on  the  knoll?"  she  ventured. 

"Yes,  or  next  to  it.  But  I've  got  quite  a  number  o' 
jobs  to  do  round  home." 

He  went  up  the  stairs  without  a  light,  carrying  his 
shoes  in  his  hand,  and  Tira  shivered  once,  thinking  how 
horrible  it  was  to  go  so  softly  in  stockinged  feet.  She 
was  not  afraid  of  him.  Only  she  did  wish  his  feet  would 
sound.  She  did  not  sleep  that  night.  She  brought  in  the 
cradle,  put  the  baby  in  it,  and  drew  it  to  the  window  and 
there  she  sat  beside  it,  the  night  through,  her  hand  on 
the  broken  hood.  She  had  chosen  a  high,  straight  chair,  so 
that  she  might  be  too  uncomfortable  to  sleep,  but  she  had 
no  temptation  to  drop  off.  All  her  nerves  were  taut,  her 
senses  broad  awake.  She  was  ready,  she  knew,  for  any 
thing.  The  night  was  peaceful,  thrilled  by  little  sounds 
of  stirring  life,  and  the  house,  whatever  it  guessed,  had 


OLD  CROW  479 

forgotten  all  about  her.  Toward  three  o'clock  she  sud 
denly  lost  her  sense  of  vitality.  She  was  cold,  and  so 
sleepy  now  that  the  thought  of  bed  was  an  ache  of  long- 
.ing.  She  got  up,  found  herself  stiff  and  heavy-footed, 
lifted  the  child  from  his  cradle  and  went  into  the  bedroom 
with  him.  There  she  put  him  inside  the  sheets,  and  lay 
down  beside  him  on  the  outside  of  the  bed.  She  slept  at 
once,  but  almost  at  once  she  was  recalled.  Tenney  was 
standing  in  the  bedroom  door,  looking  at  her. 

"Wake  up,"  he  was  saying,  not  unkindly.     "Wake  up." 

She  came  drowsily  awake,  but  before  she  was  fully  her 
self  her  feet  were  on  the  floor  and  she  was  rubbing  her 
heavy  eyes.  The  sun  was  streaming  in. 

"I've  blazed  the  fire  an'  het  me  up  some  coffee,"  he  said, 
still  in  that  impersonal  way  which  was  so  disturbing  only 
because  it  was  not  his  way.  "I've  harnessed  up.  I'm 
goin'  to  the  street.  You  remember  where  that  Brahma 
stole  her  nest?  I've  got  to  have  two  eggs  for  even 
dozens." 

"Up  in  the  high  mow,"  said  Tira.  "Right  under  the 
beam." 

She  heard  him  go  out  through  the  shed,  and  she  fol 
lowed,  to  the  kitchen,  slowly,  with  the  squalid  feeling  that 
comes  of  sleeping  in  one's  day  clothes,  and  there  she  found 
the  fire  low  and  his  cup  and  plate  on  the  bare  table.  She 
could  see  him  through  the  window.  There  was  the  horse, 
hitched  to  the  staple  in  the  corner  of  the  barn,  there  was 
the  basket  of  eggs  on  the  ground  waiting  for  its  even 
dozens." 

"D'you  find  find  any?"  she  called. 

He  did  not  answer,  and  she  ran  out  to  the  barn  and 
called  up  to  the  mow: 

"You  there?     You  find  any?" 

But  the  barn,  in  its  soft  darkness,  with  a  beam  of  dusty 


480  OLD  CROW 

light  here  and  there,  knew  nothing  about  him.  He  had 
not  climbed  to  the  mow,  for  the  ladder  was  on  the  other 
side  of  the  barn  floor.  She  lifted  it,  brought  it  over,  set 
it  against  the  hay  and  climbed.  She  was  broad  awake 
now,  and  her  taut  muscles  obeyed  and  liked  it.  She 
stepped  on  the  hay,  found  the  dark  hole  old  Brahma  chose 
for  her  secret  hoarding  place,  and  put  in  her  hand,  once, 
twice.  Three  eggs !  Brahma  must  have  thought  she  was 
pretty  smart  to  lay  three  without  having  them  stolen 
away  from  her.  Tira  put  the  eggs  carefully  in  her  apron 
pocket  and  hurried  down  the  ladder,  and  out  to  the  basket 
waiting  on  the  ground.  How  many  eggs  did  he  want  to 
make  even  dozens?  Did  he  tell  her?  She  could  not  remem 
ber.  Probably  he  had  forgotten  himself,  by  now.  She 
sat  down  on  the  step  and  took  the  eggs  out  in  her  lap, 
and  then  began  to  count  and  put  them  back  again.  The 
sun  lay  on  them  and  they  looked  pretty  to  her  in  their 
brown  fairness.  She  liked  them,  she  thought,  as  she 
counted,  liked  all  the  farm  things,  the  touch  of  them,  the 
smell.  Even  old  Charlie,  standing  there,  smelled  of  the 
barn,  and  that  was  good,  too.  Five  dozen,  that  was  it, 
and  one  over.  She  put  the  extra  egg  in  her  pocket,  got 
up  and  carried  the  basket  to  the  wagon,  placing  it  in  front 
where  it  could  sit  safely  between  Tenney's  feet.  And  at 
that  minute  Tenney  himself  came  round  the  corner  from 
the  front  of  the  house,  and  the  day  was  so  kind  and  the 
sun  so  warm  on  her  face  that  it  seemed  a  long  time  ago 
she  had  thought  he  meant  to  send  her  away,  and  she  called 
to  him: 

"You  might  git  a  quarter  o'  tea,  the  kind  they  call  Eng 
lish  breakfast.  An'  a  half  a  dozen  lemons.  It's  terrible 
hard  to  think  up  any  kind  of  a  pie  these  days,  'twixt  hay 
an'  grass." 

"Tea,"  said  Tenney,  as  if  he  were  putting  it  down  in 


OLD  CROW  481 

his  mind.     "An'  lemons.     You  might  go  out,  in  a  half  an 
hour  or  so,  an'  look  at  that  calf." 

He  stepped  into  the  wagon,  took  up  the  reins  and  drove 
away.  Tira  watched  him  out  of  the  yard,  and  at  last 
she  had  no  suspicion  of  his  coming  back,  as  he  had  done 
so  often,  to  surprise  her.  He  was  somehow — different. 
He  was  really  gone.  She  went  in,  got  her  breakfast  and 
ate  it,  this  with  more  appetite  than  she  had  had  for  many 
weeks,  and  smiled  at  herself,  thinking  she  was  not  sleepy 
yet,  but  when  sleep  came  on  her  it  would  come  like  a  cloud 
and  smother  her.  She  moved  fast  about  the  kitchen  to 
get  her  work  done  before  it  came,  and  in  perhaps  an  hour 
she  remembered  Tenney's  telling  her  to  have  an  eye  to 
the  calf.  She  smiled  a  little,  grateful  for  even  the  tiniest 
impulse  to  smile,  and  told  herself  she  wouldn't  go  out  to 
look  after  any  calf  until  she  had  looked  at  somebody  else 
who  ought  to  be  awake.  She  went  into  the  bedroom,  and 
stopped  a  choked  instant  at  the  strangeness  of  the  bed. 
The  little  coppery  head  was  what  she  should  have  seen, 
but  there  was  only  the  straight  expanse  of  quilt,  and  a  pil 
low,  disarranged,  lying  crookedly  near  the  top.  She 
snatched  up  the  pillow.  There  was  the  little  coppery 
head.  The  baby  was  lying  on  his  back,  and  over  his  face, 
carefully  folded  into  a  square,  was  her  apron,  the  one 
Eugene  Martin  had  torn  away  from  her.  The  baby  was 
dead. 


XLIII 

Tenney  did  not  come  home  until  two  o'clock.  When 
he  drove  into  the  yard  he  found  Tira  there,  standing  on 
the  step.  This  was  a  day  of  clear  sunlight,  like  that  of 
yesterday,  and  the  breeze  moved  her  light  rings  of  hair. 
Tenney  glanced  at  her  once,  but,  saying  nothing,  got  out 
and  began  to  unharness.  Tira  stood  waiting.  He  led  the 
horse  into  the  barn,  and  when  he  came  out  and  walked 
toward  the  house  she  was  still  waiting,  a  woman  without 
breath  even,  one  might  have  thought.  When  he  was  per 
haps  three  feet  from  her  she  spoke,  but  in  a  quiet  voice: 

"Stop!  You  stan'  right  there  an'  I'll  tell  you.  The 
doctor's  been.  I  'phoned  him.  I  told  him  I  overlaid  the 
baby." 

"Overlaid?"  muttered  Tenney,  in  a  puzzled  way. 

Now  a  little  feeling  did  manifest  itself  in  her  voice,  as 
if  he  must  be  a  fool  not  to  have  known  these  tragedies 
that  come  to  mothers. 

"Overlaid,"  she  repeated,  with  the  slightest  tinge  of 
scorn.  "That's  what  women  do  sometimes,  big  heavy 
women!  Roll  over  on  the  little  creatur's  an'  lay  on  'em 
so  't  they  can't  breathe.  I  s'pose  they  can't  help  it, 
though.  They're  tired.  I  told  him  I  done  that.  He  was 
sorry  for  me.  I  asked  him  if  the  crowner'd  come,  an' 
I'd  have  to  swear  to't,  an'  he  said  no.  I  was  glad  o'  that, 
though  mebbe  it's  no  worse  to  swear  to  anything  than  'tis 
to  say  it.  He  was  terrible  good  to  me.  I  told  him  baby'd 
got  to  lay  over  to  Mountain  Brook,  side  o'  mother,  an'  he 

482 


OLD  CROW  483 

said  he  was  goin'  there  an'  he'd  git  one  of  'em  to  dig  the 
little  grave.  I  told  him  you're  all  run  down,  your  foot 
behavin'  so,  an'  you  wouldn't  be  able  to  do  nothin',  an' 
I  was  'most  afraid  o'  your  givin'  out,  when  I  told  you. 
So  he's  goin'  to  send  the  man  with  the  little  coffin." 

There  was  no  faintest  tremor  of  bitterness  or  gibing 
in  this.  It  was  the  simplest  statement  of  facts.  Tenney 
had  stood  perfectly  still,  but  now  he  lifted  one  hand  and 
looked  at  it  casually,  as  he  had  that  other  time.  He  made 
an  uncertain  step,  as  if  to  pass  her  and  enter  the  house, 
but  Tira  stretched  out  her  arms.  They  barred  the  way. 

"No,"  she  said,  "you  ain't  comin'  in." 

"Ain't  comin'  in?"  repeated  Tenney. 

He  looked  up  at  her,  but  his  glance  fell  at  once  to  the 
trembling  hand. 

"No,"  said  Tira,  "you  ain't  comin'  into  this  house  ag'in 
till  he's  carried  out  of  it.  I've  made  you  up  a  bed  in  the 
lower  barn  an'  I've  set  you  out  suthin'  to  eat  there.  Day 
after  to-morrer  mornin'  the  doctor's  comin'  over  after  me 
an'  baby — or  send  somebody,  if  he  can't  come — an'  he's 
goin'  to  see  to  the  minister  an'  all.  He  was  terrible  sorry 
for  me.  An'  that  night,  day  after  to-morrer  night,  you 
can  come  back  into  the  house ;  but  you  can't  come  before." 

She  went  in  and  shut  the  door  behind  her,  and  Tenney 
heard  the  key  turn  sharply  in  the  lock.  He  stood  there 
several  minutes,  moistening  his  dry  lips  and  looking  down 
at  his  hands,  and  then  he,  too,  turned  about  and  went 
down  to  the  lowrer  barn,  where  he  found  a  bed  made  up 
and  a  cold  lunch  on  a  little  table.  But  while  he  ate  he 
wondered,  in  an  absent  muse,  about  the  bed.  It  was  the 
old  four-poster  he  had  packed  away  in  the  shed  chamber. 
How  had  she  carried  the  heavy  hardwood  pieces  down, 
fitted  them  together  and  corded  them?  He  was  curious 
enough  to  lift  the  tick  to  find  out  what  she  had  used  for 


484  OLD  CROW 

cord.  Her  new  clothes-line ;  and  there  was  the  bed  wrench 
in  the  corner  by  the  chopping  block.  It  looked  as  if,  hav 
ing  done  with  it,  she  had  thrown  it  there  in  a  wild  haste 
to  get  on  with  these  things  that  must  be  done  before  he 
came.  Even  then,  with  his  mind  on  his  hands — not  hands, 
it  seemed  to  him,  he  could  quite  bear  to  touch  food  with — 
he  wondered  if  some  man  had  helped  her.  Had  Martin 
been  here  again,  or  was  it  Raven?  But,  after  all,  nothing 
seemed  to  matter:  only  the  queer  state  of  his  hands.  That 
was  the  trouble  now. 

All  through  the  next  day  he  hung  about  the  place, 
doing  the  barn  work,  milking,  taking  the  milk  to  the  house, 
but  stopping  there,  for  Tir?i  met  him  at  the  door,  took 
the  pails  from  him,  and  carried  them  in  without  a  word. 
He  wondered  vaguely  whether,  having  denied  him  entrance 
to  his  own  house,  she  meant  to  refuse  him  food  also,  but 
presently  she  appeared  with  a  tray :  meat  and  vegetables 
carefully  arranged  and  the  coffee  he  depended  on.  Then 
she  pointed  out  a  wooden  box,  a  little  chest  that  had  lived 
up  in  the  shed  chamber,  lifted  the  lid  and  bade  him  note 
the  folded  garments  within :  he  must  change  to-morrow, 
and  these  were  his  clean  clothes.  Occasionally  he  glanced 
at  her,  but  he  could  not  see  that  she  looked  very  differ 
ent.  She  was  always  pale.  Early  in  the  morning  of  the 
third  day  she  appeared  with  hot  water  and  a  basket  filled 
with  what  seemed  to  him  at  first  a  queer  assortment  of 
odds  and  ends. 

"Here,"  she  said,  "here's  your  shavin'  things.  I'll  set 
the  little  lookin'  glass  up  ag'inst  the  beam.  Here's  your 
razor.  I'll  fill  the  mug.  Now,  you  shave  you.  If  any 
body  should  happen  to  see  you,  they'd  say  'twa'n't  fittin' 
for  a  man  to  have  his  baird  all  over  his  face,  day  of  his 
baby's  funeral." 

The  glass,  with  its  picture  of  a  red  and  blue  house  and 


OLD  CROW  485 

a  cedar  tree,  she  set  against  a  beam,  but  it  escaped  her 
fingers  and  fell  forward  and  cracked  straight  across  the 
little  house.  She  picked  it  up,  balanced  it  against  the 
beam  and  held  it,  with  a  frowning  care,  until  it  was  secure. 

"Sign  of  a  death !"  she  said,  as  if  to  herself,  but  indiffer 
ently.  "There!  you  shave  you  now,  an'  then  I'll  bring 
you  out  your  breakfast  an'  carry  in  the  things." 

Tenney  shaved  before  the  little  mirror  with  its  crack 
across  the  house,  and,  as  if  she  had  been  watching  him, 
she  appeared  at  the  minute  of  his  finishing.  Now  she  was 
carrying  a  breakfast  tray,  poising  it  absorbedly,  with  the 
intentness  of  a  mind  on  one  thing  only.  It  was  a  good 
breakfast,  eggs  and  coffee  and  bacon,  and  the  thick  corn- 
cake  he  liked;  also,  there  was  his  tin  lunch  box.  She 
pulled  out  the  little  table,  set  the  tray  on  it  and  brought 
his  chair. 

"There!"  said  she.  "Now  soon  as  ever  you've  finished 
eatin'  you  take  your  luncheon  an'  your  axe  an'  go  over 
to  the  long  pastur'  an'  don't  you  show  your  head  back 
here  till  it's  time  to  fetch  the  cows.  You  can  bring  'em 
along  with  you,  an'  I'll  have  the  pails  out  on  the  step  so 
't  you  can  start  right  off  milkin'.  An'  when  you've 
got  through,  you  fetch  the  milk  into  the  house,  same  as 
usual." 

As  she  was  leaving  the  barn  she  turned  and  the  breeze 
lifted  those  little  rings  of  her  hair  and  Tenney,  looking 
full  at  her  now,  groaned.  It  was  not,  he  felt,  any  of  the 
other  things  that  had  happened  to  them :  only  there  was 
always  breeze  enough,  even  on  the  stillest  day,  to  stir  her 
hair.  Now  it  seemed  to  be  the  only  thing  in  the  world 
with  life  in  it. 

"I  shall  tell  'em,"  she  said  clearly,  as  if  she  wanted  him 
to  understand  and  remember — and  she  did  not  look  at  him, 
but  across  the  road  and  up  the  slope  where  the  hut  stood 


486  OLD  CROW 

waiting  for  her — "the  doctor  an'  all  the  rest  I've  got  to 
see,  you  was  so  sick  over  it,  you  couldn't  come." 

Then  she  stepped  out  of  the  picture  she  had  made 
against  the  smiling  day,  the  dark  interior  of  the  barn 
framing  her,  and  walked,  with  her  free-swinging  step,  to 
the  house.  And  Tenney  ate  his  breakfast,  took  his  lunch- 
con  box  and  axe,  and  started  for  the  woods.  But  he  had 
not  got  out  of  the  yard  when  she  called  to  him.  He 
stopped  and  she  came  running;  she  was  no  longer  pale, 
and  her  eyes  were  rimmed  with  red.  She  came  up  with 
him. 

"Isr'el,"  she  said,  "you  think  o'  this.  You  think  of  it 
all  day  long.  'I'm  goin'  through  it  alone,'  you  says  to 
yourself  mebbe,  after  you've  got  off  there  into  the  woods. 
'But  I  ain't  alone.  He'll  be  with  me,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.'  An'  you  remember  there's  that  to  think  on.  An' 
there's  forgiveness.  Isr'el,  you  lay  down  your  axe.  You 
let  me  take  holt  o'  your  hand." 

He  could  only  stare  at  her,  and  she  took  the  axe  from 
his  hand  and  laid  it  at  their  feet.  She  took  his  hand  and 
put  it  to  her  cheek.  Then  she  took  his  other  hand  and  laid 
that  also  on  her  cheek,  and  murmured  a  little  formlessly, 
but  in  a  way  he  sharply  remembered  as  a  means  of  stilling 
the  baby.  She  lifted  her  head  then,  smiling  a  little,  and  still 
holding  the  hands.  But  before  releasing  them  she  stroked 
them  softly  and  said,  "There !  there !  Poor  souls,"  she 
added,  "poor  souls !"  Did  she  mean  the  unhappy  hands, 
or  all  souls  of  men  caught  in  the  network  of  mysterious 
life?  She  picked  up  his  axe  and  gave  it  to  him  as  a 
mother  might  dismiss  a  child  who  was  going  to  a  distaste 
ful  task.  "There !"  she  said  again.  "Now,  you  remem 
ber."  She  turned  from  him,  and  Tenney  went,  head 
down,  to  his  work. 

That  afternoon,  about  three  o'clock,  Nan  was  in  her 


OLD  CROW  487 

garden,  busy  with  the  peony  bed.  She  was  dressed  in  cot 
ton  crepe  the  color  of  the  soil,  and  her  cheeks  were  red, 
like  wild  roses,  and  her  ungloved  hands  also  the  color  of 
mould.  She  was  delightfully  happy  getting  into  the 
earth  and  the  earth  into  her,  and  she  looked  it.  Charlotte, 
coming  on  her  across  the  grass,  thought  her  face  was  like 
a  bloom  the  rest  of  her  had  somehow  made,  as  the  earth  was 
going  to  make  red  peonies.  That  is,  I  think  Charlotte 
thought  something  of  this  sort,  though  she  would  not  have 
put  it  in  that  way.  Only  she  did  have  a  great  sense  of 
Nan's  entire  harmony  with  the  garden  bed  and  the  garden 
bed  with  her.  Charlotte  had  other  things  on  her  mind, 
and  she  spoke  without  preamble: 

"D'you  know  what's  happened  over  to  Tenney's?" 

Nan  got  up  from  her  knees,  and  her  face  was  no  longer 
the  April-May  face  she  had  bent  above  the  peonies. 

"No,"  she  said.     "What  is  it?" 

"I  see  doctor  go  by  this  mornin'  in  his  car,"  said  Char 
lotte,  "carryin'  Tira.  In  a  couple  of  hours  they  come 
back.  An'  then  he  went  by  ag'in,  goin'  down  home.  I 
was  on  the  lookout  an'  stopped  him.  I  was  kind  of  un 
easy.  An'  he  says :  'Yes,  Mis'  Tenney's  baby's  dead.  She 
overlaid  it,'  he  says.  'They  feel  terribly  about  it,'  he 
says.  'Tenney  run  away  from  the  services.' ' 

Nan  stood  staring.  She  was  thinking  not  only  about 
the  baby  and  the  Tenneys'  feeling  terribly — this  Char 
lotte  saw — but  something  farther  behind,  thinking  back, 
and  thinking  keenly. 

"I  didn't  say  nothin'  to  nobody,"  Charlotte  continued, 
"but  the  more  I  thought  on't  the  more  stirred  up  I  got. 
The  baby  gone,  an'  she  there  all  alone !  So  I  run  over. 
I  knocked  an'  knocked,  an'  not  a  sound.  Then,  as  I  was 
turnin'  away,  I  got  a  glimpse  inside  the  kitchen  winder, 
an'  if  you'll  believe  me  there  she  set,  hat  an'  all  on,  an' 


488  OLD  CROW 

her  hands  full  o'  daffies.     You  know  them  big  double  daffies 
always  come  up  in  their  grass.     Well!" 

Nan  threw  down  her  trowel. 

"I'll  go  over,"  she  said.     "We'll  both  go." 

"What  I  come  for,"  Charlotte  hesitated,  as  they  crossed 
the  grass,  "was  whether  I  better  say  anything  to  any 
body." 

Nan  knew  she  meant  Raven. 

"No,"  she  said,  "Oh,  I  don't  know!  We  can't  tell  till 
we  see." 

Nan  remembered  she  had  not  washed  the  earth  off  her 
hands,  and  yet,  though  they  were  passing  her  door,  she 
could  not  stop.  When  they  came  in  sight  of  the  house, 
there  was  Tira  in  the  doorway.  She  had  taken  off  her  hat 
now,  and  there  was  no  daffies  in  her  hands.  She  looked 
so  commonplace,  if  her  height  and  nobility  could  ever 
be  less  august,  that  Nan  felt  a  sudden  drop  in  her  own 
anxiety.  Tira  called  to  them. 

"Couldn't  you  come  in  a  minute  ?  I'd  be  pleased  to  have 
you." 

They  went  up  the  path,  and  when  they  stood  at  the 
foot  of  the  steps,  confronting  her,  Nan  saw  how  she  had 
changed.  And  yet  not  tragically:  she  was  merely,  one 
would  have  said,  entirely  calm,  the  stillest  thing  in  that 
pageant  of  the  moving  day. 

"I'd  be  pleased,"  she  said,  "if  you'd  walk  in." 

She  looked  at  Nan,  and  Charlotte  at  once  turned  away, 
saying,  as  she  went: 

"If  there's  anything — well,  I'll  be  over." 

Nan  and  Tira  went  in,  Nan  holding  Tira's  hand  in  her 
earthy  one. 

"Let's  sit  here,"  said  Nan,  crossing  the  room  to  the 
sofa  between  the  side  windows.  She  was  not  sure  of  any 
thing  about  this  talk  except  that  she  must  keep  her  hand 


OLD  CROW  489 

on  Tira.  She  noticed  that  the  double  daffies,  a  great 
bunch  of  them,  were  lying  on  the  table.  Tira  was  smil 
ing  faintly.  She  drew  a  deep  breath.  It  sounded  as  if 
she  had  been  holding  herself  up  to  something  and  had 
suddenly  let  go. 

"Seems  good  to  set,"  she  said.  "I  ain't  hardly  set  down 

to-day  except "  She  had  it  in  mind  to  say  except 

when  she  was  in  the  car,  carrying  the  baby  over  to  Moun 
tain  Brook,  but  it  seemed  too  hard  a  thing  to  say. 

"If  you'd  just  lie  down,"  said  Nan,  "I'd  sit  here." 

"No,"  said  Tira,  "I  can't  do  that.  I'm  goin'  over  to 
Mountain  Brook." 

"Not  again?     Not  to-day?" 

"Yes,  right  off.  I'm  goin'  to  carry  them  daffies.  He 
didn't  have  no  flowers,  the  baby  didn't.  I  never  thought 
on't — then.  But  he  never  had  none.  He  played  with  a 
daffy,  'most  the  last  thing.  I've  got  to  git  'em  over 
there." 

"Not  to-day,  Tira,"  urged  Nan.  "You  wouldn't  get 
back  till  after  dark." 

"I  shouldn't  come  back  to-night,"  said  Tira.  "The 
Donnyhills  were  real  good  to  me.  They  come  to  the  grave. 
They'd  admire  to  have  me  pass  the  night." 

"Then,"  said  Nan,  "you  wait  till  I  go  home  and  wash 
my  hands,  and  I'll  ask  Mr.  Raven  for  his  car  and  you  and 
I'll  go  over.  Just  we  two." 

"No,"  said  Tira.  "  'Twouldn't  do  me  no  good  to  ride. 
When  I've  got  anything  on  my  mind  I  can't  do  better'n 
walk  it  off.  You  let  me  be !" 

The  last  was  a  sharp,  sudden  cry,  like  the  recoil  from 
an  unlooked-for  hurt. 

"I  see,"  said  Nan.  "Yes,  you  must  walk.  I  should 
want  to,  myself.  But  in  the  morning,  Tira — mayn't  I 
come  over  after  you?" 


490  OLD  CROW 

Tira  considered,  her  eyes  on  Nan's  hand  and  her  own 
clasped,  lying  on  Nan's  knee. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "you  better.  You  come  to  the  Donny- 
Lills'.  Yes,  you  come." 

Then  she  considered  again,  and  began  one  of  her  slow, 
difficult  meanderings,  where  the  quickness  of  her  heart 
and  brain  ran  ahead  of  her  tongue's  art  to  interpret 
them. 

"Seems  if  you  knew,"  she  said,  "  'most  everything  that's 
gone  on." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan,  at  a  venture,  and  yet  truthfully.  "I 
think  I've  known." 

"An'  now  it's  come  to  an  end,"  said  Tira.  "Or  if  it 
ain't,  it's  on  the  way  to  it.  An'  seems  if  you  ought  to  know 
the  whole.  You're  tough  enough  to  stan'  up  to  't." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan  simply,  "I'm  very  tough.  Nothing's 
going  to  hurt  me." 

"I  bring,"  said  Tira,  still  with  difficulty,  "bad  luck. 
Some  folks  do.  Folks  set  by  me  a  spell.  Then  they  stop. 
They  think  I'm  goin'  to  be  suthin'  they'd  do  'most  any 
thing  for,  an'  then  they  seem  to  feel  as  if  I  wa'n't.  An' 
there's  no" — she  sought  for  a  word  here  and  came  out 
blunderingly — "no  peace  nor  rest.  Nor  for  me,  neither. 
I  ain't  had  peace  nor  rest.  Except" — here  she  paused 
again  and  ended  gravely,  and  not  this  time  inadequately 
-"in  him." 

Nan  understood.     She  was  grave  in  her  answer. 

"Mr.  Raven,"  she  said.     "I  know." 

The  color  flowed  into  Tira's  face  and  she  looked  at  Nan, 
v/ith  her  jewel-like  eyes. 

"I'm  goin'  to  tell  you,"  she  said,  "the  whole  story. 
He's  like — my  God.  Anything  I  could  do  for  him — 
'twould  be  nothin'.  Anything  he  asked  of  me " 

Here  the  light  faded  out  from  her  face  and  the  flesh  of 


OLD  CROW  491 

it  had  that  curious  look  of  curdling,  as  if  with  muscular 
horror. 

"But,"  she  said,  "here  'tis.  S'pose  it  come  on  him,  that 
—that" — she  threw  back  her  head  in  despair  over  her 

poverty  of  words — "s'pose  it  made  him  like Oh,  I  tell 

you  there's  suthin'  queer  about  me,  there's  suthin' 
wrong.  It  ain't  that  I  look  different  from  other  folks. 
I  ain't  ever  meant  to  act  different.  I  swear  to  my  God 
I've  acted  like  a  decent  woman — an'  a  decent  girl — an' 
when  I  was  little  I  never  even  had  a  thought!  You  tell 
me.  You'd  know." 

Nan  felt  the  hand  on  hers  tighten.  She  put  her  other 
hand  over  it,  and  thought.  What  could  she  tell  her? 
These  matters  were  too  deep  in  the  causes  of  things  for 
man  to  have  caught  a  glimpse  of  them,  except  now  and 
then  darkly  through  some  poet's  mind.  There  was  one 
word  that,  to  a  poet's  mind  only,  might  have  illumined 
the  darkness  if  only  for  an  instant:  beauty,  that  was  the 
word.  Mankind  could  not  look  on  beauty  such  as  this  and 
not  desire,  for  a  moment  at  least,  to  possess  it  utterly. 
But  these  things  belonged  to  the  dark  places  where  brute 
nature  wrought  her  spells.  And  there  were  other  beauties, 
other  enchantments,  and  of  these,  what  could  Tira,  her 
mind  moulded  by  the  brutal  influences  of  her  life,  see, 
except  as  dreams  of  her  own,  not  as  having  wholesome 
correspondences  in  the  mind  of  man?  Could  she  guess 
what  the  appeal  of  her  loveliness  would  meet  in  Raven? 
Fastidious  standards,  pride  of  honor,  pride  of  race.  The 
jungle,  in  itself,  was  as  hateful  to  him  as  it  could  be  to 
her,  who  had  been  dragged  through  its  fetid  undergrowth 
with  a  violence  that  had  cut  indelible  marks  into  her. 
But  for  him,  Raven — as  Nan  believed  she  knew  him  and  as 
Tira,  her  striving  mind  obscured  by  the  veil  of  her  remem 
bered  past,  could  never  know — hadn't  the  jungle  something 


492  OLD  GROW 

for  him  beyond  choking  savors  and  fierce  destructive 
poisons?  Didn't  he  know  that  even  that  miasma  nour 
ished  wholesome  virtues,  strength,  abstinence,  infinite  com 
passion,  if  you  crossed  the  horrible  expanse  to  the  clear 
air  beyond?  Tira,  fair  as  her  mind  was  in  its  untouched 
integrity,  hated  the  jungle,  but  it  was  a  part  of  the  wrong 
life  had  done  her  that  she  could  not,  highly  as  she  wor 
shiped  Raven,  keep  herself  from  seeing  his  kinship  to  the 
natural  earth  as  Martin's  kinship  with  it,  Tenney's — all 
the  beasts  who  had  desired  her.  How  to  tell  her  that? 
How  to  tell  her  that  although  it  was  most  loving  of  her 
to  save  Raven  from  the  curse  she  believed  to  be  upon  all 
men,  he  would  save  himself? 

"They  think,"  Tira  continued,  in  a  voice  rough  enough 
to  hurt  the  ear,  "there's  suthin'  about  me — different. 
An'  they  feel  as  if,  if  they  owned  me  body  an'  soul  they'd 
be — I  dunno  what  they'd  be." 

"They  think  they'd  be  gods,"  Nan's  mind  supplied. 
"You  are  beauty,  Tira.  You  are  the  cup.  They  think  if 
they  could  drink  of  you  they  would  never  thirst  again." 

"An'  now,"  said  Tira,  "s'pose  a  man  like — like  him — 
s'pose  it  looked  to  him  some  minufce  he  never'd  so  much  as 
expected — s'pose  it  looked  to  him  as  if  he'd  be  made  if  he 
owned  me  body  an'  soul.  Well !  That's  easy,  you  say.  If 
I  love  him,  what's  my  body  an'  what's  my  soul?  Offer 
'em  to  him,  quick.  An'  wouldn't  I,  if  that  was  all? 
Wouldn't  I?" 

She  called  it  sharply,  in  an  angry  challenge. 

"Yes,"  said  Nan  quietly,  "I  know  you  would." 

"Well,"  said  Tira,  "what  then?  It  wouldn't  be  any 
more" — her  eyes,  glancing  here  and  there  in  troubled 
search  for  help  in  her  impossible  task  of  speech — "like 
them  daffies  over  there.  'Twould  be — mud." 

This,  though  it  did  not  satisfy  her,  carried  an  ineffable 


OLD  CROW  493 

loathing,  the  loathing  that  had  its  seed  in  the  pathway  of 
her  difficult  life. 

"Now,"  she  said,  "you  set  by  him,  don't  you?" 

"Yes,"  said  Nan. 

"If  'twas  your  body  an'  soul,  they'd  be  nothin'  to  you  if 
he  needed  'em." 

"Nothing." 

"An'  you're  goin'  to  stan'  by  him,  an'  if  you  marry 
away  from  him " 

"Never  mind  that,"  said  Nan.  "What  do  you  want  me 
to  do?" 

"I  want  you,"  said  Tira,  "to  see  what  I  mean.  An'  I 
want  you  to  tell  it  or  not  to  tell  it,  as  it  seems  best.  An' 
if  ever  the  time  comes,  when  it'll  do  him  good  to  know 
I  run  away  from  him  because  he  was  my  life  an'  my  soul 
an'  my  God,  you  tell  him.  An'  if  it  ain't  best  for  him  to 
know,  you  let  it  rest  betwixt  you  an'  me." 

"But,  Tira,"  said  Nan,  "you're  coming  back?" 

Tira  considered. 

"You  see,"  she  answered  finally,  "I've  got  my  walkin' 
papers,  as  you  might  say.  The  baby's  gone.  'Twas  the 
baby  that  made  trouble  betwixt  his  father  an'  me.  An' 
now  there  won't  be  no  reason  for  my  hidin'  in  the  shack 
up  there  or  even  passin'  the  time  o'  day  with  you,  either 
of  you.  An'  that's  a  kind  of  a  runnin'  away,  ain't  it? 
Shouldn't  you  call  it  runnin'  away?" 

She  smiled  dimly,  and  Nan  said: 

"Yes.  But  I  shall  come  over  to  the  Donnyhills'  to-mor 
row." 

"Yes,"  said  Tira,  "so  do.     Now  I'd  better  go." 

They  got  up  and  Nan  put  her  hands  on  Tira's  shoul 
ders — and  one  hand  was  numb  from  that  iron  clasp — 
and  stood  looking  at  her.  Nan  was  not  a  kissing  woman, 
but  she  considered  whether  she  should  kiss  her,  to  show 


494  OLD  GROW 

she  loved  her.  She  thought  not.  Tira's  body  had  so  re 
volted  against  life,  the  life  of  the  earth  that  had  grown 
up  into  a  jungle,  that  it  would  be  kinder  to  leave  it  invio 
late  even  by  a  touch. 

"Don't  you  want  to  change  your  mind?"  Nan  asked. 
"Mayn't  I  get  the  car?  It's  seven  long  miles,  Tira." 

"Not  the  way  I'm  goin',"  said  Tira.  There  was  a  little 
smile  at  the  corners  of  her  mouth.  It  was  a  kind  smile,  a 
mother  smile.  She  meant  to  leave  Nan  reassured.  "I  go 
'cross  lots,  by  old  Moosewood's  steppin'  stones." 

Nan  withdrew  her  hands  and  thought  absently  how  thin 
Tira's  shoulders  were  under  her  dress.  She  was  like  a 
ship,  built  for  endurance  and  speed,  but  with  all  her  love 
liness  in  the  beauty  of  bare  line.  Tira  put  on  her  hat  and 
took  up  her  daffodils  and  followed,  out  at  the  front  door 
and  down  the  path.  Nan  looked  back. 

"You've  left  the  door  open,"  said  she.  "Don't  you 
want  to  lock  up?" 

"No,"  said  Tira,  "he'll  see  to  it." 

At  the  gate  they  partepl,  with  a  little  smile  from  Tira, 
the  kind  that  so  strangely  changed  her  into  something 
more  childlike  than  her  youth. 

"You  come,"  she  said,  "in  the  mornin'.  I  shall  be  there, 
an'  glad  enough  to  have  you." 

She  turned  away  and  broke  at  once  into  her  easy  stride. 
Nan  stood  a  minute  watching  her.  Then  something  came 
up  in  her,  a  surge  of  human  love,  the  pity  of  it  all — 
Tira,  Raven,  the  world,  and  perhaps  a  little  of  it  Nan — 
and  she  ran  after  her.  The  tears  were  splashing  down 
her  face  and  blurring  the  bright  day. 

"Tira !"  she  called,  and,  as  she  came  up  with  her,  "dar 
ling  Tira!" 

"Why,"  said  Tira,  "you're  cryin'!  Don't  you  cry, 
darlin'.  I  never  so  much  as  thought  I'd  make  you  cry." 


OLD  CROW  495 

They  put  their  arms  about  each  other  and  their  cheeks 
were  together,  wet  with  Nan's  tears,  and  then — Nan 
thought  afterward  it  was  Tira  who  did  it — they  kissed, 
and  loosed  each  other  and  were  parted.  Nan  went  home 
shaken,  trembling,  the  tears  unquenchably  coming,  and 
now  she  did  not  turn  to  look. 


XLIV 

Nan  was  very  tired.  She  went  to  bed  soon  after  dark 
and  slept  deeply.  But  she  woke  with  the  first  dawn,  roused 
into  a  full  activity  of  mind  that  in  itself  startled  her. 
There  was  the  robin  outside  her  window — was  it  still  that 
one  robin  who  had  nothing  to  do  but  show  3^ou  how  bravely 
he  could  sing? — and  she  had  an  irritated  feeling  he  had 
tried  to  call  her.  Her  room  was  on  the  east  and  the  dawn 
was  still  gray.  She  lay  looking  at  it  a  minute  perhaps 
after  her  eyes  came  open :  frightened,  that  was  it,  fright 
ened.  Things  seemed  to  have  been  battering  at  her  brain 
in  the  night,  and  all  the  windows  of  her  mind  had  been 
closed,  the  shutters  fast,  and  they  could  not  get  in.  But 
now  the  light  was  coming  and  they  kept  on  battering. 
And  whatever  they  wanted,  she  was  frightened,  too  fright 
ened  to  give  herself  the  panic  of  thinking  it  over,  find 
ing  out  what  she  was  frightened  about;  but  she  got  up 
and  hurried  through  her  dressing,  left  a  line  on  her  pillow 
for  the  maid  and  went  downstairs,  out  into  a  dewy  morn 
ing.  She  had  taken  her  coat,  her  motor  cap  and  gloves. 
Once  in  the  road  she  started  to  run,  and  then  remembered 
she  must  not  pass  Tenney's  running,  as  if  the  world  were 
afire,  as  things  were  in  her  mind.  But  she  did  walk  rap 
idly,  and  glancing1  up  when  she  was  opposite  the  house, 
saw  the  front  door  open  as  Tira  had  left  it,  and  a  figure  in 
one  of  the  back  rooms  outlined  against  the  window  of  the 
front  one  where  she  and  Tira  had  sat.  That  would  be 
Tenney.  He  must  be  accounting  to  himself  for  the  lone- 

496 


OLD  CROW 

some  house,  though  indeed  Tira  would  have  left  some  word 
for  him.  When  she  went  up  the  path  to  Raven's  door  she 
was  praying  to  the  little  imps  of  luck  that  Amelia  might 
not  be  the  first  to  hear  her.  She  tapped  softly,  once, 
twice,  and  then  Raven's  screen  came  up  and  he  looked 
down  at  her.  They  spoke  a  word  each. 

"Hurry,"  said  Nan. 

"Wait,"  he  answered,  and  put  down  the  screen. 

When  he  came  out,  Nan  met  him  on  the  top  step  where 
she  had  been  sitting,  trying  harder  still  not  to  be  fright 
ened.  But  he,  too,  was  frightened,  she  saw,  and  that  this, 
to  him  also,  meant  Tira. 

"Get  your  coat,"  she  said.  "She's  gone.  Over  to  Moun 
tain  Brook." 

Raven's  face  did  not  alter  from  its  set  attention. 

"Yes,"  said  Nan,  "the  car.  I'll  tell  you  the  rest  of  it 
on  the  way." 

He  got  his  coat  and  cap,  and  they  went  down  to  the 
garage  together.  Shortly,  they  were  slipping  out  of  the 
yard,  and  she,  with  one  oblique  glance,  saw  Amelia  at  a 
window  in  her  nightie,  and  forgot  to  be  frightened  for 
the  instant  while  she  thought  Amelia  would  be  account 
ing  for  this  as  one  of  her  tricks  and  compressing  her  lips 
and  honorably  saying  nothing  to  Dick  about  it.  Raven 
turned  down  the  road  and  Nan  wondered  if  she  had  even 
spoken  the  name  of  Mountain  Brook. 

"Let  her  out,"  said  she. 

Raven  did  let  her  out.  He  settled  himself  to  his  driv 
ing,  and  still  he  had  not  questioned  her.  Nan  turned  her 
face  to  him  and  spoke  incisively  against  the  wind  of  their 
going: 

"The  baby  died.  Tira  lay  on  it  in  her  sleep.  That  was 
Monday.  It  was  buried  yesterday.  At  Mountain  Brook. 
Tira  went  back  to  Mountain  Brook  yesterday  afternoon, 


498  OLD  CROW 

to  carry  the  baby  some  flowers" — the  moment  she  said  this 
she  saw  how  silly  it  was  and  wondered  why  she  had  not 
seen  it,  why  she  had  been  such  a  fool  as  not  to  be  fright 
ened  sooner.  "She  said  she  would  spend  the  night  with 
those  Donnyhills."  But  had  Tira  thrown  in  the  Donnyhills 
to  keep  Nan  from  being  frightened? 

Raven  gave  no  sign  of  having  heard.  They  were 
speeding.  The  east  behind  them  was  a  line  of  light,  and 
the  mists  were  clearing  away.  When  they  turned  into  the 
narrow  river  road,  the  gray  seemed  to  be  there  waiting  for 
them,  for  this  was  the  gorge  with  the  steep  cliff  on  one 
side  and  the  river  on  the  other,  always  dark,  even  at  mid 
day,  with  moss  patches  on  the  cliffs  and  small  streams 
escaping  from  their  fissures  and  tumbling:  always  the 
sound  of  falling  water. 

"The  Donnyhills?"  Raven  asked.  "Don't  I  remember 
them?  Sort  of  gypsy  tribe,  shif'less." 

"Yes,  that's  it.  She  must  have  known  them  when  she 
lived  over  there,  before  she  married." 

"That's  where  we  go,  is  it?" 

"No,"  said  Nan,  and  now  she  wondered  if  she  could 
keep  her  voice  from  getting  away  from  her.  "Stop  where 
the  cross  cut  comes  out!  Old  Moosewood's  stepping 
stones.  She  was  going  to  cross  by  them,  where  old  Moose- 
wood "  There  she  stopped,  to  get  a  hand  on  herself, 

knowing  she  was  going  to  tell  him,  who  knew  it  before  she 
was  born,  the  story  of  Moosewood,  the  Indian,  found  there 
dead. 

If  the  stab  of  her  disclosures  drew  blood  from  Raven 
she  could  not  have  told.  The  road  was  narrower  still, 
and  rougher.  Nan  had  forgotten  where  the  stepping 
stones  came  out.  He  was  slackening  now.  She  knew 
the  curve  and  the  point  where  the  cliff  broke  on  the  left, 
for  the  little  path  that  continued  the  cross  cut  on  the 


OLD  CROW  499 

other  side  of  the  road.  He  got  out  without  a  glance  at 
her,  stepped  to  the  water  side  of  the  roadway,  and  she  fol 
lowed  him.  And  it  was  exactly  what  her  fear  had  wak 
ened  her  to  say.  There  was  no  sign  of  Tira,  but,  gro 
tesquely,  her  hat  was  lying  on  one  of  the  stepping  stones, 
as  if  she  had  reckoned  upon  its  telling  them.  Raven  ran 
down  the  path  and  into  the  shallow  water  near  the  bank, 
and  again  Nan  followed  him,  and,  at  the  edge  of  the  water, 
stopped  and  waited.  When  the  water  was  above  his  waist, 
he  stooped,  put  down  his  arms  and  brought  up  something 
that,  against  the  unwilling  river,  took  all  his  strength. 
And  this  was  Tira.  He  came  in  shore,  carrying  her,  and 
walking  with  difficulty,  and  Nan  ran  up  the  bank  before 
him.  He  laid  Tira's  body  on  the  ground,  and  stood  for 
an  instant  getting  his  breath,  not  looking  at  her,  not  look 
ing  at  Nan. 

"It's  over,"  he  said  then  quietly.  "It's  been  over  for 
hours."  That  was  the  instant  of  reaction,  and  he  shook 
himself  free  of  it.  "Where  do  they  live?"  he  asked  Nan 
brusquely.  "Yes,  I  know.  We'll  take  her  there.  I'll 
hold  her.  You  drive." 

He  lifted  Tira  again,  put  her  into  the  car  as  if  a  touch 
might  hurt  her,  and  sat  there  holding  her,  waiting  for 
Nan.  And  Nan  got  in  and  drove  on  to  the  Donnyhills'. 

All  that  forenoon  was  a  madness  of  haste  and  strange 
ness.  It  is  as  well  to  look  at  it  through  the  eyes  of  Nan, 
for  Raven,  though  he  seemed  like  himself  and  was  a  model 
of  crisp  action,  had  no  thoughts  at  all.  To  Nan  it  was  a 
long  interval  from  the  moment  of  stopping  before  the 
little  gray  Donnyhill  house  (and  rousing  more  squalid 
Donnyhills  than  you  would  have  imagined  in  an  under 
ground  burrow  of  wintering  animals),  through  indig 
nities  they  had  to  show  Tira's  body,  the  hopeless 
effort  of  rousing  it  again  to  its  abjured  relations  with  an 


500  OLD  CROW 

unfriendly  world.  And  while  they  worked  on  the  tenant- 
less  body,  the  Donnyhill  boy,  a  giant  with  a  gentle  face, 
said  he  could  drive,  and  was  sent  with  Raven's  car  to  the 
farmer  who  had  a  telephone,  and  the  doctor  came  and 
Nan  heard  herself  explaining  to  him  that  she  woke  up 
worried  over  Tira,  because  Tira  had  spoken  of  the  step 
ping  stones.  The  doctor  shook  his  head  over  it  all.  The 
woman  had  been  almost  beside  herself  after  the  child's 
death.  Perfectly  quiet  about  it,  too.  But  that  was  the 
kind.  Nan  didn't  think  she  had  any  intention — any  de 
sign? — and  Nan  hastened  to  say  Tira  had  told  why  she 
was  going,  told  it  quite  simply.  She  had  forgotten  to  give 
the  child  any  flowers.  Of  course,  that  did  show  how 
wrought  up  she  was.  And  there  were  the  stepping  stones. 
They  were  always  tricky.  Here  the  doctor  brought  up 
old  Moosewood,  and  said  there  were  queer  things.  When 
you  came  to  think  of  it,  New  England's  a  queer  place. 
Suicide  ?  No  !  Inquest  ?  No  !  He  guessed  he  knew.  Then 
he  went  away  and  promised  to  send  the  other  man  who 
would  be  the  last  to  meddle  with  the  body  of  Tira. 

The  Donnyhill  house  was  still,  for  all  the  children, 
with  consolatory  chunks  of  bread  in  hand,  had  been  sent 
off  into  the  spacious  playing  places  about  them.  Mrs. 
Donnyhill,  who  looked  like  a  weatherworn  gypsy,  went 
about  muttering  to  herself  passionately  sorrowful  lamen 
tations  :  "God  help  us  !  poor  creatur' !  poor  soul !"  and  she 
and  Nan  bathed  Tira's  body — somehow  they  were  glad 
to  wash  off  the  river  water — and  put  on  it  a  set  of  clothes 
Nan  suspected  of  being  Mrs.  Donnyhill's  only  decent  wear. 
For  the  folded  garments  were  all  by  themselves  in  the 
bedroom  bureau,  and  it  was  true  that  the  women  in  this 
region  had  forethought  for  a  set  to  be  buried  in.  When 
this  was  over  and  before  the  coming  of  the  other  man 
who  was  to  have  rights  over  Tira's  body,  Mrs.  Donnyhill 


OLD  CROW  501 

remembered  Raven  and  Nan  might  not  have  breakfasted, 
and  gave  them  bread  and  strong  tea — brewed  over  night, 
it  seemed  to  have  been.  They  ate  and  drank,  and  she  moved 
about  tucking  children's  tyers  and  sweaters  into  holes  of 
concealment  and  making  her  house  fitting  for  Tira's  ma 
jesty,  all  the  time  muttering  her  pleas  to  God. 

About  noon,  when  Tira  was  lying  in  the  front  room,  in 
her  solitude,  no  more  to  be  touched  until  she  was  put  into 
her  coffin,  Raven  came  in  from  his  steady  walk  up  and 
down  before  the  house  and  went  to  Nan,  where  she  sat 
by  the  window  in  the  other  front  room.  The  strength  had 
gone  out  of  her.  She  sat  up  straight  and  strong,  but  her 
lips  were  ashen.  As  they  confronted  each  other,  each  saw 
chiefly  great  weariness.  Raven's  face,  Nan  thought,  was 
like  a  mask.  It  was  grave,  it  was  intent,  but  it  did  not 
really  show  that  he  felt  anything  beyond  the  general  seri 
ousness  of  the  moment. 

"Get  your  things,"  he  said  to  her.  "We'll  go  back. 
Tenney's  got  to  be  told,  and  I  suppose  Charlotte  or  some 
body  will  have  to  do  something  to  his  house." 

They  both  knew  the  strange  commotion  attendant  here 
on  funerals.  Sometimes  houses  were  upturned  from  top 
to  bottom  and  cleaned,  even  to  the  paint.  Nan  put  out  a 
hand  and  touched  his  arm. 

"Don't  do  that,  Rookie,"  she  said,  "don't  take  her  back 
there.  She  mustn't  go  into  that  house  again.  She 
wouldn't  want  it." 

Raven  considered  a  moment.  His  face  did  not  lose  its 
mask-like  calm. 

"No,"  he  said  then,  "she  mustn't.  She  must  come  to 
my  house — or  yours." 

"No,"  said  Nan  again,  still  keeping  her  hand  on  his 
arm,  and  aching  so  with  pity  that  she  was  humbly  grateful 
to  him  for  letting  her  touch  his  sleeve,  "she  mustn't  do 


502  OLD  CROW 

that  either.  It  would  be  queer,  Rookie.  It  would  'make 
talk.'  She  wouldn't  like  that.  Don't  you  see?" 

He  did  see.  He  gave  a  concurring  motion  of  the  head 
and  was  turning  away  from  her,  but  Nan  rose  and,  still 
with  her  hand  on  his  arm,  detained  him. 

"We'll  leave  her  here,"  she  said.  "That  woman — she's 
darling.  We  can  make  up  to  her  afterward.  But  you 
mustn't  appear  in  it  again,  except  to  tell  Tenney,  if  you'd 
rather.  Though  I  could  do  that.  Now,  let's  go." 

He  was  ready.  But  when  he  had  reached  the  little  entry 
between  this  room  and  the  one  where  Tira's  body  lay,  she 
ran  to  him. 

"Rookie,"  she  said,  "Mrs.  Donnyhill's  out  there 
with  the  children.  Don't  you  want  to  go  in  and  see 
Tira?" 

Raven  stood  for  a  minute,  considering.  Then  he  crossed 
the  entry  and  Nan,  finding  he  could  not,  for  some  reason, 
put  his  hand  on  the  latch,  opened  the  door  for  him,  and 
he  went  in.  But  only  a  step.  He  stood  there,  his  eyes  on 
the  poor  bed  where  Tira  lay,  and  then,  as  if  he  were  leav 
ing  a  presence,  he  stepped  back  into  the  entry,  and  Nan 
understood  that  he  was  not  even  carrying  with  him  the 
memory  of  her  great  majesty  of  beauty.  She  thought  she 
understood.  Even  Tira's  face  was  to  be  left  covered. 
She  was  to  be  inviolate  from  the  eyes  of  men.  In  a  few 
minutes  he  had  brought  round  the  car,  Nan  had  arranged 
things  with  Mrs.  Donnyhill,  and  they  drove  out  into  the 
day — blazing  now,  like  midsummer — and  so  home.  And 
all  the  way  they  did  not  speak,  until,  passing  Tenney's, 
the  door  open  and  the  house  with  a  strange  look  of  being 
asleep  in  the  sun,  Nan  said : 

"Leave  me  here.     I'll  see  him  and  then  go  on." 

Raven  did  not  answer.  He  drove  past,  to  her  own 
gate,  and  Nan,  understanding  she  was  not  to  move  fur- 


OLD  CROW  503 

ther  in  any  direction,  got  out.  Raven,  perhaps  feeling  his 
silence  had  been  unmerciful  to  her,  spoke  quietly : 

"Run  and  get  a  bath  and  a  sleep.  I'll  see  him.  I'll  come 
for  you  if  you're  needed." 

He  turned  the  car  and  drove  back,  and  Nan  went  in  to 
her  waiting  house.  Raven  stopped  before  Tenney's  and, 
since  the  front  door  was  open,  halted  there  and  knocked. 
No  answer.  Then  he  went  round  to  the  side  door 
and  knocked  again,  and  called  out  several  times,  and 
the  sound  of  his  voice  brought  back  to  him,  like  a  sick 
ness,  the  memory  of  Tenney's  catamount  yell  when  he 
had  heard  it  that  day  in  the  woods.  No  answer.  The 
house  was  asleep  and  a  calf  blared  from  the  barn.  He 
went  back  to  the  car,  drove  home,  and  found  Jerry 
waiting  in  the  yard  and  Charlotte  at  the  door.  Dick  was 
in  his  chair  down  under  the  trees,  his  mother  beside  him, 
reading.  It  was  so  unusual  to  see  Amelia  there  that  Raven 
wondered  idly — not  that  it  mattered — he  could  meet  a 
regiment  of  Amelias  with  this  callousness  upon  him — if 
Dick  had  beguiled  her  away  so  that  she  might  not  pounce 
on  him  when  he  returned.  He  got  out  of  the  car 
stiffly.  He  was,  he  felt  at  that  instant,  an  old  man.  But 
if  physical  ineptitude  meant  age,  Jerry  and  Charlotte 
were  also  old,  for  Jerry  was  bewildered  beyond  the 
possibility  of  speech  and  Charlotte  shaken  out  of  her 
calm. 

"You  come  into  the  kitchen,"  she  said,  and  Raven  fol 
lowed  her,  and  sank  into  a  chair,  set  his  elbows  on  the 
table,  and  leaned  his  head  in  his  hands.  He  was  very  tired, 
but  Mrs.  Donnyhill's  boiled  tea  was  inexorably  keeping 
him  up.  Charlotte,  standing  above  him,  put  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder. 

"Johnnie,"  she  said,  "Isr'el  Tenney's  been  here.  He 
wants  you  to  fiive  him  back  his  cr 


504  OLD  CROW 

"Oh,"  said  Raven,  taking  his  head  out  of  his  hands 
and  sitting  up.  "His  gun?" 

"He  says,"  Charlotte  continued,  her  voice  shaking, 
"Tira's  run  away.  I  told  him  the  last  I  see  o'  Tira  was 
yesterday  afternoon  standin'  in  her  own  door,  an'  he 
asked  if  she  had  her  things  on  an'  I  didn't  know  what  to 
say.  An'  he  said  somebody  down  the  road  said  you  went 
by  'fore  light,  drivin'  like  blazes.  An'  you  had  a  woman 
in  the  car.  An'  Tira'd  run  away." 

Raven  was  looking  up  at  her,  a  little  smile  on  his  lips, 
but  in  his  eyes  such  strange  things  that  Charlotte  caught 
his  head  to  her  and  held  it  against  her  breast. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "yes,  Charlotte,  Tira  has  run  away.  She 
went  yesterday,  over  to  Mountain  Brook.  She  tried  to 
cross  the  stepping  stones.  She's  over  at  the  Donnyhills' 
now.  She's  going  to  stay  there  till  she's  buried.  I'll  go 
and  tell  him.  Where  do  you  think  he  is?" 

Charlotte  still  held  his  head  against  her  warm  heart. 

"You  don't  s'pose,"  she  \vhispered,  "you  don't  believe 
she  done  that?" 

"What?"  he  answered,  and  then  her  meaning  came  to 
him  as  his  first  hint  of  what  Tira  might  have  done.  He 
drew  himself  away  from  the  kind  hand  and  sat  up  straight. 
"No,"  he  said  sharply.  "It  was  an  accident.  She  never 
meant" — it  had  come  upon  him  that  this  was  what  she 
had  meant  and  what  she  had  done.  But  it  must  not  be 
told  of  her,  even  to  Nan.  "Where's  Tenney?"  he  said. 
"Where  do  you  think  he  is?" 

Charlotte  hesitated. 

"He's  up  there,"  she  said,  after  a  moment  while  Raven 
waited,  "up  to  the  hut.  He  said  he's  goin'  to  git  his  gun 
out  o'  there  if  he  had  to  break  an'  enter.  He  said  he 
see  it  through  the  winder  not  two  days  ago.  An'  Jerry 
hollered  after  him  if  he  laid  hand  to  your  property  he'd 


OLD  CROW  505 

have  the  law  on  him.  Jerry  was  follerm'  on  after  him, 
but  you  went  by  in  the  car  an'  I  called  on  him  to  stop. 
O  Johnnie,  don't  you  go  up  there,  or  you  let  Jerry  an'  me 
go  with  you.  If  ever  a  man  was  cni/ed,  that  man's  Isr'el 
Tenney,  an'  if  you  go  up  there  an'  stir  him  up !" 

"Nonsense !"  said  Raven,  in  his  old  kind  tone  toward 
her,  and  Charlotte  gave  a  little  sob  of  relief  at  hearing  it 
again.  "I've  got  to  see  him  and  tell  him  what  I've  told 
you.  You  and  Jerry  stay  where  you  are.  Tenney's  not 
dangerous.  Except  to  her,"  he  added  bitterly  to  himself, 
as  he  left  the  house.  "And  a  child  in  its  cradle.  My  God ! 
he  was  dangerous  to  her !"  And  Charlotte,  watching  from 
the  window,  saw  him  go  striding  across  the  road  and  up 
the  hill. 

Raven,  halfway  up,  began  to  hear  an  unexpected 
sound:  blows,  loud  and  regular,  wood  on  wood.  When  he 
had  passed  the  turning  by  the  three  firs  he  knew,  really 
before  his  eyes  confirmed  it.  Tenney  was  there  at  the  hut, 
and  he  had  a  short  but  moderately  large  tree  trunk — 
almost  heavier  than  he  could  manage — and  was  using  it  as 
a  battering  ram.  He  was  breaking  down  the  door.  Raven, 
striding  on,  shouted,  but  he  was  close  at  hand  before 
Tenney  was  aware  of  him  and  turned,  breathless,  letting 
the  log  fall.  He  had  actually  not  heard,  and  Raven's 
presence  seemed  to  take  him  aback.  Yet  he  was  in  no 
sense  balked  of  his  purpose.  He  faced  about,  breathless 
from  his  lifting  and  ramming,  and  Raven  saw  how  intense 
was  the  passion  in  him:  witnessed  by  the  whiteness  of  his 
face,  the  burning  of  his  eyes. 

"I  come  up  here,"  said  Tenney,  "after  my  gun.  You 
can  git  it  for  me  an'  save  your  door." 

Raven  paid  no  attention  to  this. 

"You'd  better  come  along  down,"  he  said.  "We'll  stop 
at  my  house  and  talk  thing's  over." 


506  OLD  CROW 

This  he  offered  in  that  futile  effort  the  herald  of  bad 
news  inevitably  makes,  to  approach  it  slowly. 

"Then,"  said  Tenney,  "you  hand  me  out  my  gun.  I 
don't  leave  here  till  I  have  my  gun." 

"Tenney,"  said  Raven,  "I've  got  bad  news  for  you." 

"Yes,"  said  Tenney  blankly.  "She's  run  away.  You 
carried  her  off  this  mornin'.  You  don't  need  to  tell  me 
that." 

"I  didn't  carry  her  off,"  said  Raven,  speaking  slowly 
and  clearly,  for  he  had  a  feeling  that  Tenney  was  some 
how  deaf  to  him.  "Tira  went  over  to  Mountain  Brook 
yesterday.  Nan  knew  she  was  going,  and  this  morning 
she  was  worried,  because  she  got  thinking  of  Tira's  cross 
ing  the  stepping  stones.  She  asked  me  to  take  her  over 
there.  We  found  her.  She  was  drowned." 

Tenney's  eyes  had  shifted  from  Raven's  face.  The  light 
had  gone  out  of  them,  and  they  clung  blankly  to  the  tree 
spaces  and  the  distance. 

"Have  it  your  own  way,"  said  Tenney,  in  as  blank  a 
tone.  "Settle  it  amongst  ye." 

"We  shall  go  over  to-morrow,"  said  Raven.  "Will  you 
go  with  us?" 

"No,"  said  Tenney. 

"Drownded  herself,"  he  said,  at  length.  "Well,  that's 
where  it  led  to.  It's  all  led  to  that." 

"She  slipped,"  said  Raven  roughly.  "Don't  you  under 
stand?  Anybody  could,  off  those  wet  stones." 

"You  open  that  door,"  said  Tenney,  "an'  gimme  my 
gun." 

But  Raven  went  on  talking  to  him,  telling  him  quietly 
and  reasonably  what  they  had  judged  it  best  to  do,  he 
and  Nan.  If  Tira  had  wanted  the  baby  buried  over  there 
by  her  mother,  wouldn't  she  want  to  be  buried  there  her 
self? 


OLD  CROW  507 

"Very  well,  then.  We'll  arrange  things.  The  day 
after" — he  could  not  bring  himself  to  put  the  bare  cere 
monial  that  would  see  her  out  of  the  world  into  the  words 
familiar  to  the  country  ear — "that  will  be  the  day.  We 
shall  go  over.  We'll  take  you  with  us." 

"No,"  said  Tenney,  "you  needn't  trouble  yourselves. 
I  sha'n't  go  over  there.  Nor  I  sha'n't  keep  nobody  else 
from  goin'." 

By  this  Raven  judged  he  meant  that  he  would  not  in 
terfere  with  their  seeing  Tira  out  of  the  world  in  their 
own  way.  The  man  had  repudiated  her.  It  was  a  relief. 
It  seemed  to  leave  her,  in  her  great  freedom,  the  more 
free. 

"Come  down  now,"  said  Raven,  "to  my  house.  We'll 
have  something  to  eat." 

That  was  all  he  could  think  of,  to  keep  the  stricken 
creature  within  sound  of  human  voices. 

"I  ain't  hungry,"  said  Tenney.  "An'  if  I  was" — here 
he  stopped  an  instant  and  a  spasm  shot  across  his  face — 
"she  left  me  cooked  up." 

"All  right,"  said  Raven.  "Then  you  go  home  now, 
and  later  in  the  day  I'll  come  over  and  see  if  you've 
thought  of  anything  else." 

He  believed  the  man  should  not,  in  his  despairing  frame 
of  mind,  be  left  alone.  Tenney  turned,  without  a  look  at 
him,  and  went  off  down  the  slope.  Raven  watched  him 
round  the  curve.  Then  he  took  out  the  key  from  under 
the  stone,  remembering  it  need  never  be  put  there  again, 
went  in  and  locked  the  door.  Suddenly  he  felt  deadly  sick. 
He  went  to  the  couch,  lay  down  and  closed  his  eyes  on 
the  blackness  before  them.  If  he  had  a  wish,  in  this 
infinitude  of  desolation,  it  was  that  he  mi^ht  never  open 
them  again  on  the  dark  defiles  of  this  world.  It  was  dusk 
when  he  did  open  them,  and  for  a  minute  he  had  difficulty 


508  OLD  CROW 

in  remembering  why  he  was  there  and  the  blow  that  had 
struck  him  down  to  such  a  quivering  apprehension  of 
what  was  coming  next.  Then,  before  he  quite  found  out, 
he  learned  what  had  waked  him.  There  was  a  voice  out 
side — Tenney's  voice,  only  not  Tenney's  as  he  had  known 
it — whimpering,  begging  in  a  wild  humility: 

"You  there?  You  let  me  in.  You  there?  For  God?s 
sake  let  me  in." 

Raven  was  at  once  clearly  awake.  His  mind  was,  after 
its  interlude  of  darkness,  ready.  He  got  up,  and  opened 
the  door. 

"Come  in,"  he  said.  "Yes,  leave  the  door  open.  I've 
been  asleep.  It's  close  in  here." 

Tenney  came  in,  not  so  much  limping  as  stumbling. 
He  seemed  to  be  shorter  in  stature.  His  head  was  bent, 
his  body  had  sagged  together  as  if  not  a  muscle  of  it  had 
strength  to  do  its  part.  Raven  pulled  forward  a  chair, 
and  he  sank  into  it. 

"What  do  you  s'pose,"  he  began — and  the  voice  was 
so  nearly  a  whimper  that  Raven  was  not  surprised  to  see 
tears  on  his  cheeks — "what  do  you  s'pose  I  wanted  my 
gun  for?  To  use  on  you?  Or  him?  No.  On  me.  But 
I  don't  know  now  as  I've  got  the  strength  to  use  it.  I'm 
done." 

This  was  his  remorse  for  the  past  as  he  had  made  it, 
and  Raven  had  no  triumph  in  it,  only  a  sickness  of  dis 
taste  for  the  man's  suffering  and  a  frank  hatred  of  having 
to  meet  it  with  him. 

"You  know,"  said  Tenney,  looking  up  at  him,  sharply 
now,  as  if  to  ascertain  how  much  he  knew,  "she  didn't  do 
it.  The  baby  wa'n't  overlaid.  God !  did  anybody  believe 
she  could  do  a  thing  like  that?  She  slep'  like  a  cat  for 
fear  suthin'  would  happen  to  him." 

"What,"  asked  Raven,  in  horror  of  what  he  felt  was 


OLD  CROW  509 

coming,  and  yet  obliged  to  hear,  "what  did  happen  to 
him?" 

Tenney  stretched  out  his  hands.  He  was  looking  at 
them,  not  at  Raven. 

"I  can't  git  it  out  o'  my  head,"  he  continued,  in  a 
broken  whisper,  "there's  suthin'  on  'em.  You  don't  see 
nothin',  do  you?  They  look  to  me ' 

There  he  stopped,  and  Raven  was  glad  he  did  not  ven 
ture  the  word.  What  had  Raven  to  say  to  him?  There 
seemed  not  to  be  anything  in  the  language  of  man,  to  say. 
But  Tenney  came  alive.  He  was  shaking  with  a  great 
eagerness. 

"I  tell  you,"  he  said,  "a  man  don't  know  what  to  do. 
There  was  that — that — what  I  done  it  to — he  wa'n't 
mine." 

He  looked  at  Raven  in  a  hunger  of  supplication.  He 
was  almost  dying  to  be  denied. 

"Yes,"   said   Raven  steadily.      "He  was  yours." 

"How  do  you  know?"  shrieked  Tenney,  as  if  he  had 
caught  him.  "She  talk  things  over?" 

Raven  considered.    What  could  he  say  to  him? 

"Tenney,"  he  said  at  last,  "you  haven't  understood. 
You  haven't  scon  her  as  she  was,  the  best  woman,  the 
most  beautiful " 

Here  he  stopped,  and  Tenney  threw  in  angrily,  as  if  it 
were  a  part  of  his  quarrel  with  her: 

"She  was  likely  enough.  But  what  made  her,"  he 
continued  violently,  "what  made  her  let  a  man  feel 
as  if  her  mind  was  somewheres  else?  Where  was  her 
mind?" 

That  was  it,  Raven  told  himself.  Beauty !  it  promised 
ineffable  things,  even  to  these  eyes  of  jealous  greed,  and 
it  could  not  fulfil  the  promise  because  everything  it  whis 
pered  of  lay  in  the  upper  heavens,  not  on  earth.  But  Ten- 


510  OLD  CROW 

ney  would  hot  have  heard  the  answer'  even  if  Raven  could 
have  made  it.  He  was  broken.  He  bent  his  head  into  his 
hands  and  sobbed  aloud. 

"Good?  'Course  she  was  good.  Don't  I  know  it?  An' 
she's  gone.  An'  me — what  be  I  goin'  to  do?" 

Somehow  Raven  understood  that  he  was  not  thinking  of 
his  desolate  house  and  lonesome  mind,  but  of  himself  in 
relation  to  the  law  he  had  broken  and  the  woman's  heart, 
broken,  too.  Grotesquely  almost,  came  to  his  mind  Tira's 
grave  reminder :  "He's  a  very  religious  man."  And  Ten- 
ney  seemed  to  have  come,  by  some  path  of  his  own,  round 
to  the  same  thing. 

"If  there  was  a  God " 

"Oh,  yes,"  Raven  threw  in,  moved  by  some  power  out 
side  himself,  "there  is  a  God." 

"If  there  was,"  said  Tenney,  "he  couldn't  forgive  me 
no  more'n  He  could  Cain.  There's  that  on  my  hands. 
When  there's  that " 

He  stopped  before  the  vision  of  the  man  God  had 
scourged  into  exile  for  the  shedding  of  blood.  To  Raven 
there  was  suddenly  a  presence  beside  them :  not  a  Holy 
Presence,  such  as  they  might  well  have  invoked,  but  Old 
Crow.  And  he  remembered  how  Old  Crow  had  eased  the 
mind  of  Billy  Jones. 

"Tenney,"  he  said,  "don't  you  remember  what  Tira 
believed  in?  She  believed  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  She 
believed  He  could  forgive  sins." 

"Do  you  believe  it?"  Tenney  hurled  at  him.  "Can 
He  forgive— that?" 

Again  he  stretched  out  his  hands. 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.     "He  can  forgive  that." 

"An'  I  be,"  Tenney  continued,  in  his  scriptural  phras 
ing,  "whiter  than  snow?" 

Raven  found  himself  halting.     There  were,  behind  this 


OLD  CROW  511 

vision  of  the  symbol  by  which  God  made  Himself  manifest 
to  man,  reserves  of  strict  integrities. 

"Tenney,"  he  said,  "you've  killed  a  child.  Your  child. 
You're  a  criminal.  The  only  thing  you  can  do  to  get  back 
among  men  is  to  give  yourself  up.  To  the  law.  And 
take  your  medicine." 

"O  my  God!"  cried  Tenney.  "Tell  it?  Tell  that? 
Bring  it  up  afore  judge  an'  jury  how  I  thought " 

"Don't  tell  me  what  you  thought,"  said  Raven  sharply. 
"You've  said  it  once.  You  were  crazy,  and  you  killed 
your  child." 

"An'  what  if "  he  began,  and  Raven  finished  for 

him: 

"What  if  they  hang  you?  We  can't  go  into  that. 
There's  your  first  step.  Give  yourself  up." 

The  next  instant  he  was  sorry  for  the  brutality  of  this. 
But  Tenney  did  not  find  it  brutal.  Strangely  it  seemed 
to  him  a  way  out,  the  only  way.  He  was  brooding.  Sud 
denly  he  looked  up. 

"You  told  me,"  he  said,  apparently  in  wonder,  "you 
didn't  believe." 

What  to  say?  "I  believe  in  God  Who  is  letting  me — 
tenderly,  oh,  with  such  pity  for  my  human  foolishness — 
seize  whatever  crutch  I  can  to  help  you  over  this  dark 
mortal  way?"  Could  he  say  that?  No,  it  was  true,  but 
somehow  it  couldn't  be  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered  gravely,  "I  believe." 

"Then,"  said  Tenney  eagerly,  "you  pray  with  me." 

Raven,  thinking  on  this  afterward,  knew  he  did  pray, 
in  what  words  he  never  could  recall,  and  that  the  sub 
stance  of  it  was  Forgiveness:  Forgive  our  sins.  And 
that  when  he  had  finished  Tenney  completed  his  faltering 
close  with  "For  Christ's  sake.  Amen!"  And  that  be 
cause  Tenney  looked  at  him  for  confirmation,  he,  Raven, 


512  OLD  CROW 

repeated  it  after  him,  humbly  and  with  sincerity.  And 
when,  shaken  both  of  them  beyond  the  possibility  of 
speech,  they  rose  from  their  knees,  they  heard  a  voice 
outside,  Nan's  voice: 

"Rookie,  let  me  in." 

Raven  opened  the  door,  and  found  her  there,  and  Dick 
was  with  her. 

"You  shouldn't  have  come  up  here,"  he  said  to  Dick. 
"You're  not  supposed  to  climb  hills." 

"He  had  to,"  said  Nan.  "I  came  up  and  listened  and  I 
heard  voices.  So  I  went  back  again  and  asked  Charlotte 
for  sandwiches.  And  Dick  would  come.  But  I  carried 
the  basket."  She  had  gone  past  him  into  the  room  and 
was  unpacking  food.  "No,  Mr.  Tenney,  you  stay.  They're 
for  you,  too.  We're  all  tired  out,  you  know.  Let's  keep 
together  all  we  can.  We're  so  lonesome.  Tira !  but  she's 
the  only  one  that  isn't  lonesome.  She's  gone  to  heaven. 
Look  !  hot  coffee,  too.  Now  you  eat,  both  of  you.  There's 
nothing  like  grub." 

In  the  midst  of  this,  Dick  had  gone  round  the  table  and 
put  out  his  hand  to  Tenney  and  said : 

"H'  are  you,  Tenney?"  and  Tenney,  dazed,  had  given 
his. 

Raven  found  he  was  hungry  and  began  to  eat,  and  Nan 
somehow  saw  to  it  that  Tenney  also  ate.  And  Raven,  at 
least,  felt  in  the  breath  of  the  spring  night,  something 
ebbing  there  in  the  hut.  What  was  it :  waves  of  wild 
human  turmoil  finding  a  channel  where  they  could  flow 
equably?  Nan  and  Dick  went  out  on  the  veranda  while 
the  two  finished,  and  Raven  noted  the  murmur  of  their 
voices  and  wondered  a  little,  idly,  whether  they  were  better 
friends — lovers  or  only  better  friends.  Presently  Nan 
was  back  again.  She  brushed  up  their  crumbs  and  packed 
the  dishes  into  the  basket. 


OLD  CROW  513 

"Now,  Mr.  Tenney,"  she  said,  "this  is  what  we've  done. 
When  1  found  you  were  both  up  here,  I  had  Jerry  go  over 
and  get  your  cows.  He  milked  and  I  strained  the  milk. 
I  locked  up  the  house,  too.  Here's  your  key.  What 
makes  you  go  back  to-night?  It'll  be  easier  by  daylight. 
Rookie,  couldn't  he  sleep  up  here?" 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "of  course  he  can.  We'll  be  down 
io  breakfast,  tell  Charlotte." 

Tenney  offered  no  preference  or  opinion.  He  sat  there, 
his  key — the  key  Tira  had  lost,  he  did  remember  vaguely 
— on  the  table  before  him.  Nan,  with  the  air  of  there 
being  no  more  to  do,  wafted  Dick  away  with  her.  And 
Raven  and  Tenney  spent  the  night  together  in  the  hut. 
Raven  did  not  sleep.  He  had  an  impression  that  Tenney 
did  not,  either.  It  seemed  to  him  a  watch  with  the  dead. 


XLV 

In  that  darkest  minute  when  it  seems  as  if  dawn  will 
never  come  or,  if  it  does,  to  bring  with  it  a  deeper  chill, 
Raven,  for  the  first  time  in  weeks,  found  his  old  enemies 
upon  him :  the  fear  of  life,  the  terrible  distaste  for  con 
tinuance  in  a  world  where  there  is  no  escape,  even  in  going 
on.  Was  this  grief  for  Tira?  Her  needs  had  pulled  him 
out  from  his  own  sickness  of  mind,  and  now  that  she 
would  never  need  anything  again,  must  he  return  to  the 
dark  dwelling  of  his  mental  discontent  and  crouch  there 
whimpering  as  Tenney  had  whimpered  when  he  came  to 
him  here  a  few  hours  ago  ?  And  slowly,  achingly,  his  mind 
renewedly  accepted  the  iron  necessity  which  is  living. 
There  was  no  giving  up.  There  was  no  escape.  He 
had  to  live  because  the  other  choice — was  it  the  fool's 
choice  or  the  coward's? — was  not  only  unthinkable,  but 
it  did  no  good.  There  was  no  escape.  And  side  by  side 
with  the  sickness  of  distaste  for  life  as  he  found  it,  was 
another  distaste,  as  strong:  for  this  malady  of  nostalgia 
itself.  He  could  not  abide  it  another  instant.  It  was 
squalid,  it  was  unclean,  and  he  found  his  mind  crying  out: 
"Help  me !  for  God's  sake  help  me !"  But  it  was  not  to 
God  he  cried.  It  was  to  Old  Crow.  And  Old  Crow  heard. 
Indubitably  he  heard.  For  there  was  an  answer.  "Yes ! 
yes  !"  the  answer  kept  beating  in  his  mind.  He  would  help. 

And  what  of  Tira?  Was  she  resolved  into  the  earth 
that  made  her?  Or  would  she  also  help?  He  wondered 
why  she  had  died.  Was  it  because  she  had  been  unable 

514 


OLD  TROW  515 

to  face  the  idea  of  the  little  boy  who  was  not  right  taking 
his  maimed  innocence  into  some  other  state  alone?  No. 
Tira  had  her  starkly  simple  faith.  She  had  her  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  She  would,  as  simply  as  she  believed,  have 
trusted  the  child  to  Him.  Did  she  so  fear  to  face  her 
life  with  T'cnney — the  hurtling,  blind,  elemental  creature 
with  blood  on  his  hands — that  she  took  herself  away? 
No.  Tira  was  no  such  person.  There  was  a  wild,  high 
courage  in  her  that,  the  more  terrible  the  challenge,  re 
sponded  the  more  valiantly.  Why  did  she  take  herself 
away?  And  what  was  she  in  these  walls  that  had  been 
dedicated  to  her  safety?  Was  she  existent,  like  Old  Crow? 
Was  she  here  with  Raven  when  his  mind  clamored  for 
peace?  Did  she,  too,  answer  "Yes,  yes!"  She  had,  he 
concluded,  gone.  It  seemed  as  if  she  had  withdrawn  her 
self,  by  her  own  will,  for  some  inexorable  reason.  He 
remembered  threnodies  that  saw  the  beloved  dead  ab 
sorbed  into  the  course  of  nature:  the  dawn,  the  sunset,  the 
season's  round,  the  flowers  that  spring  ever  renewed  to 
deck  the  laureate  hearse.  And  as  his  mind  sought  her  in 
the  night  breeze  that  came  in  to  fan  him  and  Tenney  alike, 
in  the  sky  where  the  stars,  through  arboreal  spaces,  never 
looked  so  piercingly  bright,  he  did  seem  to  be  aware  of 
an  actual  intelligence.  But  it  was  assuredly  not  Tira 
and  it  was  not  Old  Crow.  It  was  Anne. 

Whether  his  mind  had  been  so  occupied  by  these  other 
more  immediate  things  that  she  could  not  get  the  connec 
tion  between  her  will  and  his,  whether  she  now  found 
him,  bereft  of  Tira,  free  to  do  her  unchanged  bidding,  he 
could  not  see.  But  Anne  was  there.  At  least,  the  knowl 
edge  of  her  was  in  his  mind,  insisting  on  being  heard,  and 
insisting  as  it  never  had  in  this  present  life.  For  whereas 
then  her  attack  had  been  subtly  organized,  Anne  herself, 
the  directing  general,  behind  almost  invisible  potencies  of 


516  OLD  CROW 

suggestion  and  finesse,  now  here  she  was  in  the  open, 
plainly  commanding  him,  as  if  this  might  be  the  only  fight 
she  should  be  able  to  manage,  and  it  must  be  to  the  finish. 
And  what  she  wanted  was  plain  obedience  touching  the 
disposal  of  her  trust.  It  was  not  his  love  she  was  asking 
for  now.  That,  he  concluded,  though  without  bitterness, 
might  not  look  desirable  to  her  any  more.  Or  perhaps 
she  had  learned  how  futile  it  was  to  ask  it.  Or,  indeed, 
was  all  love  futile  beyond  the  grave?  No,  for  he  loved 
Tira  withdrawn  into  her  impenetrable  seclusion — but  that 
he  must  not  think  of.  The  fight  was  on,  the  conclusive 
fight  with  Anne.  And  he  seemed  to  be  battling  for  the 
integrity  of  his  own  soul,  the  freedom  of  his  will.  He  sat 
up  on  his  couch,  and  heard  himself  say  aloud : 

"No.     I  won't  do  it.    You  can't  make  me." 

Was  this  the  way  to  speak  to  Anne,  to  whom  all  the 
reticences  and  delicacies  of  life  were  native  air?  But  she 
was  not  Anne  now  so  much  as  the  enemy  of  sane  conduct 
here  in  this  world  and  of  his  struggling  will. 

"D'you  speak?"  called  Tenney  from  the  next  room. 

"All  right,"  said  Raven,  and  realized  he  must  not  speak 
again. 

Thereafter  the  fight  with  Anne  went  on  within  the  arena 
of  his  mind.  He  poured  himself  forth  to  her.  For  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  he  admitted  her  to  his  inner  beliefs 
and  sympathies.  He  wrould  not,  he  told  her,  devote  her 
money  to  the  debasing  of  the  world.  Wherever  she  was, 
she  had  not  learned  a  page  more  than  she  had  known 
when  she  wrote  that  letter  to  him  about  the  things  that 
help  the  world  and  the  things  that  hinder.  Pie  didn't  be 
lieve,  he  told  her,  she  really  wanted  to  learn.  She  wanted 
only  to  be  obeyed,  to  put  her  money  where  she  had  ordered 
it  to  go  merely  because  she  had  ordered  it. 

"You  can't  have  it,  Anne,"  he  repeated,  whenever  his 


OLD  CROW  517 

mind  halted  in  argument,  and  she  kept  pressing  him  back, 
back  into  his  old  hopeless  subserviency.  "I'll  tell  you 
where  it's  going.  It's  going  to  France.  There  won't  be 
any  palace,  Anne.  It's  going  into  the  land.  It's  going  to 
help  little  French  boys  and  French  girls  to  grow  up  with 
time  enough  and  strength  enough  to  put  their  beautiful 
intelligence  into  saving  the  earth.  It's  going  to  be  that 
sort  of  a  bulwark  between  them  and  the  enemies  of  the 
earth.  And  that's  the  only  road  to  peace.  Don't  you  see 
it  is,  Anne?  Don't  you  see  it?  You  won't  get  peace  by 
talking  about  it.  You  wasted  your  money  when  you  did 
it,  all  through  war-time.  You  harmed  and  hindered. 
Don't  you  know  you  did?  If  you  don't,  what's  the  use 
of  dying?  Don't  they  know  any  more  there  than  we  do 
here?  Anyway,  I  know7  more  than  you  did  when  you 
made  your  will,  and  that's  what  I'm  going  to  do.  Train 
up  beautiful  intelligences,  Anne,  the  ones  that  are  likeli 
est  to  work  it  all  out  practically :  howr  to  live,  that's  what 
they're  going  to  work  out,  how  to  live,  howr  to  help  the 
world  to  live.  Don't  you  see,  Anne?  For  God's  sake, 
don't  you  see?" 

She  didn't  see,  or,  if  she  did,  she  was  too  angry  to  give 
him  the  comfort  of  knowing  she  did.  But  suddenly,  in  the 
midst  of  her  anger,  there  was  a  break,  a  stillness,  though 
it  had  been  still  before.  Perhaps  it  was  most  like  a  still 
ness  of  mind,  and  he  felt  himself  as  suddenly  awake  to  a 
certainty  that  Anne  had  done  with  him.  Once  before  she 
had  seemed  to  leave  him,  but  this  time  it  was  for  good. 
She  had  gone,  wherever  the  road  was  open  to  her.  He  had 
armed  his  will  and  sent  it  out  to  fight  her  will.  She  was 
routed,  and  she  would  never  challenge  him  again.  Per 
haps,  in  her  scorn,  she  had  repudiated  him.  Perhaps  the 
world,  if  it  were  called  on  to  pronounce  judgment,  would 
repudiate  him  for  betraying  a  dead  woman's  trust.  Well, 


518  OLD  CROW 

let  it.  The  impeccability  of  his  own  soul  wasn't  so  very 
valuable,  after  all,  weighed  against  what  he  saw  as  the 
indisputable  values  of  mortal  life.  He  lay  back  on  his 
bed,  exhausted  by  the  fight,  foolishly  exhausted  because, 
he  told  himself,  there  hadn't  been  any  real  Anne.  Only 
her  mind,  as-  he  had  known  it,  and  his  own  mind  had  been 
grappling,  like  two  sides  of  an  argument.  But  while  he 
tried  to  dull  himself  with  this  denial  of  the  possibilities 
beyond  our  sense,  he  knew  underneath  that  there  had  been 
Anne.  And  she  had  gone.  She  would  not  come  again. 

Then  he  must  have  slept,  for  there  was  a  gulf  of  for- 
getfulness,  and  when  his  eyes  came  open,  it  was  on  Ten- 
ney  standing  there  in  the  doorway.  Raven  felt  squalid 
after  the  night  in  his  clothes,  and  Tenney  looked  to  him 
in  much  the  same  case.  Also  Tenney  was  shrunken,  even 
since  he  had  come  to  the  hut  the  day  before,  and  then  he 
had  seemed  not  three-quarters  of  his  height.  He  asked 
now,  not  as  if  he  cared,  but  as  if  he  wondered  idly: 

"D'  I  leave  my  ammunition  up  here?" 

He  had  the  gun  in  his  hand. 

"Let  the  gun  alone,"  said  Raven.  He  got  up  and  took 
it  away  from  him,  and  Tenney  dumbly  suffered  it.  "We'll 
go  down  now  and  have  some  breakfast,  and  Jerry'll  do 
your  chores." 

"I  can  do  my  own  chores,"  said  Tenney.  "I  can  go 
into  the  barn,  I  guess." 

By  this  Raven  understood  that  he  did  not  mean  to  go 
into  the  house.  Perhaps  he  was  afraid  of  it.  Men  are 
afraid  of  houses  that  have  grown  sinister  because  of  know 
ing  too  much. 

That  day  was  a  curious  medley  of  watchfulness  over 
Tenney:  for  Raven  felt  the  necessity  of  following  him 
about  to  see  he  did  himself  no  harm.  He  called  him  in 
to  breakfast,  but  Tenney  did  not  even  seem  to  hear,  and 


OLD  CROW  519 

stood  brooding  in  the  yard,  looking  curiously  down  at 
his  lame  foot  and  lifting  it  as  if  to  judge  how  far  it  would 
serve  him.  Then  Charlotte,  who  had  been  watching  from 
the  window,  went  out  and  told  him  she  had  a  bite  for  him 
in  the  shed,  and  he  went  in  with  her  at  once  and  drank 
coffee  and  ate  the  bread  she  buttered.  He  didn't,  so  he 
told  her,  want  to  touch  things  any  more.  So  she  broke 
the  bread  and  he  carried  the  pieces  to  his  mouth  with  an 
air  of  hating  them  and  fearing.  When  he  went  over  to 
his  house,  Raven  went  with  him,  and,  finding  Jerry  had 
milked  and  driven  the  cows  to  pasture,  they  stood  outside, 
miserably  loitering,  because  Tenney  had  evidently  made 
that  resolve  not  to  go  in. 

"I  suppose,"  said  Raven,  after  a  little,  to  recall  him, 
"the  milk  is  in  there." 

"Yes,"  said  Tenney.     "I  s'pose  'tis." 

"It  isn't  strained,  you  know.  What  do  you  mean  to  do 
about  it?" 

"Do?"  said  Tenney.     "Let  it  set." 

Again  they  loitered,  back  and  forth,  sometimes  on  one 
side  of  the  woodpile,  sometimes  the  other,  each  with  a 
pretense  of  finding  the  woodpile  itself  a  point  of  interest. 
Suddenly  Tenney  ceased  his  foolish  walk  up  and  down. 

"Look  here,"  said  he,  "should  you  jest  as  lieves  go 
in?" 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.  "Only  you'd  better  come  with-  me. 
Get  it  over.  You've  got  to  go  into  your  own  house." 

"What  I  want,"  said  Tenney,  "is  a  blue  apron,  blue 
with  white  specks.  I  don't  believe  it's  there,  but  if  'tis  I 
want  it." 

To  Raven,  this  was  not  strange.  It  was  Tira's  apron 
he  wanted,  something  that  belonged  to  her,  to  touch,  per 
haps  to  carry  about  with  him  as  ,1  reminder  of  the  warmth 
n.nd  kindliness  that  lay  in  everything  she  owned.  Blue! 


520  OLD  CROW 

that  was  her  Madonna  color.  No  wonder  Tenney  remem 
bered  it,  if  it  was  blue. 

"It  ain't  hangin'  up,"  said  Tenney,  with  a  particularity 
that  seemed  to  cause  him  an  intense  pain  of  concentra 
tion.  "She  never'd  hang  it  up  with  t'others.  It's  folded. 
Mebbe  in  her  work-basket,  mebbe — my  God  in  heaven !  she 
wouldn't  ha'  kep'  it.  She's  burnt  it  up.  You  take  off  the 
cover  o'  the  kitchen  stove.  You  look  there  an'  see  if  you 
can't  find  the  leastest  scrid.  Blue,  you  remember,  all 
folded  up." 

Raven  went  into  the  kitchen  where  the  pails  of  milk 
were  on  the  table,  waiting.  He  toqk  off  the  stove  cover 
and  looked  in,  still  an  idle  compliance,  to  quiet  the  man's 
mind.  It  was  like  an  outcome  to  a  dream.  For  there  it 
was,  a  soft  disorder  easily  indicating  burned  cloth,  and 
one  shred  of  blue,  a  piece  perhaps  an  inch  and  a  half 
square,  hemmed  on  three  sides :  the  end  of  an  apron  string. 
He  took  this  carefully  out,  and  stood  there  looking  at  it 
a  tense  moment,  as  if  it  could  summon  Tira  back  to  tell 
him  wrhat  it  meant ;  took  out  his  pocketbook,  laid  it  in, 
and  put  the  pocketbook  away.  Then  he  went  back  to 
Tenney. 

"You  were  right,"  he  said.     "She  burned  it  up." 

Tenney   stared  at   him   for   what   seemed   a  long  time. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  as  if  it  had  been  Raven  who  suggested 
it,  "so  she  burnt  it  up.  Wa'n't  there  any  left — not  a 
scrid?" 

"Yes,"  said  Raven,  "there  was.  What  do  you  want 
of  it?" 

"Nothin',"  said  Tenney.  "No,  I  don't  want  it,  If 
'twas  the  whole  on't  I  shouldn't  want  it,  come  to  think.  A 
man  couldn't  hang  himself  by  an  apron.  Even  that  one 
you  couldn't.  I  guess" — he  turned  upon  Raven  so  sick  a 
gaze  that  Raven  advanced  to  him  and  put  a  hand  on  his 


OLD  CROW  521 

arm — "I  guess,"  said  Tenney,  "I'm  done.  I've  got  to  git 
some  sleep.  Should  you  jest  as  soon  I'd  go  up  to  that 
shack  o'  yourn  an'  lay  down  a  spell?" 

Again  they  went  up  to  the  hut,  and  Tenney,  throwing 
himself  on  the  couch,  was  at  once  asleep.  All  that  day 
Raven  watched  by  him,  and  that  night  also  they  were 
there  together:  a  strange  day  and  night,  Raven  remem 
bered  afterward,  with  Charlotte  coining  and  Nan  and 
finally  Dick,  all  with  food  or  wistful  companionship,  and 
Nan's  assuring  him,  in  her  way  of  finding  nothing  out  of 
the  common,  that  everything  had  been  done  for  Tira,  and 
she  would  go  over  to  the  service.  Charlotte  would  go 
with  her.  It  would  be  better — her  eyes  questioned  him, 
and  he  nodded,  not  answering.  It  would  be  better  he 
should  not  go.  On  the  third  day  she  appeared  again, 
in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon,  and  said  she  had  just  come 

from  Mountain  Brook  and  everything  was That  she 

did  not  finish,  Tenney's  somber  eyes  waited  upon  her  with 
such  a  dumb  expectancy.  What  was  going  to  be  done, 
she  wondered.  Tenney  couldn't  stay  in  the  hut,  keeping 
Raven  there  with  him,  as  Billy  Jones  had  kept  Old  Crow. 
Yet  she  wasn't  sure  Raven  wouldn't  stay.  But  while  she 
thought  it,  Tenney  was  answering  her,  though  he  didn't 
seem  to  be  speaking  to  either  of  them.  He  might  have 
been  appealing  to  something  invisible  in  the  room. 

"I'll  shave  me,"  he  said,  "an'  then  I'll  see."  Something 
passed  over  him  like  a  great  moving  wind.  "Why,  God 
A'mighty !"  he  cried.  "I  can't  stop  to  shave  me.  It's  now 
or  never,  don't  you  know  'tis?" 

He  snatched  his  hat  from  the  chair  where  he  had  thrown 
it,  and  went  out  of  the  hut,  limping  down  the  hill.  And 
Raven  was  with  him.  He  was  with  him  as  he  hurried  along 
the  road  so  fast  that  it  seemed  as  if  the  next  step  meant 
breaking  into  a  run.  He  was  with  him  when,  halfway  to 


OLD  CROW 


the  street,  Eugene  Martin  passed  them,  in  his  buggy, 
stopped  further  on  and  called  to  them:  "Ride?"  He  was 
not  laughing  now,  he  was  not  jibing.  He  seemed  to  be 
constrained  to  ask  them  to  ride,  they  were  hurrying  so. 
Raven  threw  a  curse  at  him,  but  Tenney  broke  into  a 
limping  run  and  jumped  into  the  tail  of  the  wagon  and 
sat  there,  his  legs  dangling.  And  he  called  so  piercingly 
to  Martin  to  drive  along,  to  "Hurry,  for  God's  sake, 
hurry  !"  that  Martin  did  whip  up,  and  the  wagon  whirled 
away,  and  Raven  hurried  on  alone. 

That  night,  at  eight  o'clock,  Nan  went  over  to  ask  if 
Raven  had  come  home,  and  finding  he  had  not,  loitered 
back  to  her  own  gate  and  waited.  She  could  not  go  in. 
If  she  kept  her  mind  on  him,  he  might  come.  And  pres 
ently  he  came.  She  walked  to  meet  him  and  put  her  hand 
through  his  arm.  He  was  walking  firmly,  but  he  looked 
"all  in." 

"Come,"  she  said.     "Supper's  wraiting." 

"No,"  said  Raven,  "not  yet.  I  got  a  fellow  to  bring 
me  back  from  the  street.  Dick  said  you'd  been  over." 

"Yes,"  said  Nan.  "I  was  horribly  worried.  Where's 
Tenney?" 

"Gone." 

"Where?" 

"To  jail.  He  had  Martin  take  him  to  a  man  he  knew 
about  at  the  street.  Sworn  in  special  constable  in  the 
War.  Had  him  telephone  the  sheriff.  Then  I  got  there. 
Had  to  inquire  round,  to  find  out  \vhere  he'd  gone.  When 
I  went  in,  Tenney  was  sitting  there  telling  the  sheriff  he'd 
killed  his  child.  Sheriff  asked  what  for.  Said  he  had  to 
do  it.  Then  I  came  in  and  he  began  to  ask  me  questions 
about  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

"But,  Rookie,"  said  Nan,  "he  didn't.  He  couldn't. 
Tira  told  me  she  -  " 


OLD  CROW  523 

"Yes,"  said  Raven  heavily.  "You  may  be  called  to 
testify." 

"Hut  when  lie  asked  that,"  said  Nan,  "about—  "  she 
hesitated. 

"About  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ?  It  was  whether  his  sins 
were  whiter  than  snow." 

"What  did  you  tell  him?" 

"Oh,"  said  Raven,  "I  told  him  yes.  If  he  was  sorry, 
they  were.  Of  course  I  told  him  yes.  What  could  I  tell 
him?  But  I  don't  believe  I'd  have  told  Martin  yes,  if 
he'd  asked  me  about  his  sins.  He's  scared  blue.  He  was 
there  at  the  gate  when  I  went  in.  Shook  like  a  palsy,  kept 
saying  he  didn't  know — didn't  think — nobody  need  ask 
him— 

"What  did  you  say,  Rookie?" 

"Nothing.     I  went  in  to  Tenney.     Now  I'll  go  back." 

"You  won't  come  in  and  have  a  bite?  Nice  supper, 
Rookie.  Saved  for  you." 

"No.  Not  to-night."  He  turned  away  from  her  as  if 
she  were  as  actually  the  outside  shell  of  herself  as  he  was 
of  himself.  They  were  mechanical  agents  in  a  too  ter 
rible  world.  But  he  called  back  to  her:  "Nan,  I've  told 
her." 

She  was  at  his  side,  hoping  for  more,  perhaps  a  touch 
of  his  hand. 

"Anne.    I  got  word  to  her  somehow.     She  understood." 

"Was  she "  Nan  paused. 

"Yes,"  said  Raven.     "But  it's  over— done." 

He  turned  away  from  her  and  went  fast  along  the  road 
home.  He  had,  she  saw,  escaped  Aunt  Anne.  He  had  got 
himself  back.  Did  his  quick  steps  along  the  road  say  he 
meant  to  escape  her,  too?  That  was  easy.  Darling 
Rookie !  he  should  if  he  wanted  to. 


XLVI 

T!he  story  ends,  as  it  began,  with  a  letter.  It  was  writ 
ten  by  Raven,  in  Boston,  to  Dick,  in  France,  about  a 
year  after  Tenney  gave  himself  up.  The  first  half  of  it 
had  to  do  with  accounts,  money  paid  over  by  Raven  to 
Dick,  requisitions  sent  in  by  Dick  to  Raven,  concise  state 
ments  of  what  Raven  judged  it  best  to  do  in  certain  con 
tingencies  Dick  had  asked  instructions  upon.  Then  it  con 
tinued  on  a  new  page,  an  intimate  letter  from  Raven  to 
the  nephew  who  was  administering  the  Anne  Hamilton 
Fund.  The  previous  pages  would  be  submitted  to  the  two 
Frenchmen,  who,  with  Dick,  formed  the  acting  board. 
These  last  pages  were  for  Dick  alone. 

"No,  Tenney  wasn't  even  indicted.  There  was  the 
whirlwind  of  talk  you  can  imagine.  Reminiscent,  too ! 
'Don't  you  remember?'  from  house  to  house,  and  whenever 
two  men  met  in  the  road  or  hung  over  the  fence  to  spit  and 
yarn.  It  was  amazing,  the  number  of  folks  who  had  set 
him  down  as  'queer,'  'odd,'  all  the  country  verdicts  on  the 
chap  that's  got  to  be  accounted  for.  Even  his  religion 
was  brought  up  against  him.  The  chief  argument  there 
was  that  he  always  behaved  as  if  the  things  he  believed 
were  actually  so.  He  believed  in  hell  and  told  you  you 
were  bound  for  it.  But  I  can't  go  into  that.  They 
couldn't,  the  ones  that  tried  to.  They  got  all  balled  up, 
just  as  their  intellectual  betters  do  when  they  tackle  the 
ology.  All  this,  of  course,  began  before  you  went  away, 
and  it  continued  in  mounting  volume.  If  you  want  New 

524 


OLD  CROW  525 

England  psychology,  you  have  it  there,  to  the  last  word. 
That  curious  mixture  of  condemnation  and  accept 
ance  !  They  believed  him  capable  of  doing  things  unspeak- 
ahlr,  and  yet  there  wasn't  a  public  voice  to  demand  an 
inquiry  as  to  whether  he  really  had  done  them.  They 
cheerfully  accepted  the  worst  and  believed  the  best.  And 
it's  true  he  had  behaved  more  or  less  queer  for  a  long  time, 
wouldn't  speak  to  people  when  he  met  them,  didn't  seem 
to  know  them,  and  then  suddenly  breaking  out,  in  the 
blacksmith's  shop  or  buying  his  grain  at  the  store,  and 
asking  if  they  were  saved.  The  women  were  the  queer 
est.  They  said  he  set  his  life  by  the  child.  Why,  he 
couldn't  even  bear  to  go  to  the  funeral  of  his  wife  or  the 
child  either,  and  hadn't  they  seen  him  and  Tira  drivin' 
by,  time  and  again,  the  baby  in  Tira's  lap,  in  his  little 
white  coat  and  hood?  I  don't  know  how  many  times  I 
heard  the  evidence  of  that  little  white  hood.  Even  Char 
lotte  caught  it  and  plumped  it  at  me. 

"You  remember  yourself  how  disgusted  the  authorities 
were  when  he  trotted  about  like  a  homeless  dog  and  insisted 
on  being  arrested  for  a  crime  they  knew  he  didn't  commit. 
Poor  old  Tenney!  they  said,  any  man  might  be  crazed, 
losing  his  wife  and  child  in  one  week.  They  were  very 
gentle  with  him.  They  told  him  if  he  hung  round  talk 
ing  much  longer  he'd  be  late  for  his  planting.  Of  course 
the  doctor  did  set  the  pace.  He'd  told,  everywhere  he 
went,  how  Tira  had  sent  for  him  at  once,  and  how  she  had 
said  she  had,  in  that  hideous  country  phrase,  'overlaid' 
the  child.  One  interesting  psychological  part  of  it  has 
persisted  to  this  day:  the  effect  Tira  had  on  the  doctor, 
his  entire  belief  in  her  simple  statement  which  she  was 
never  asked  to  swear  to.  (You  remember  there  was  no 
inquest.)  He  never,  he  said,  was  so  sorry  for  a  woman 
in  his  life.  He  seems  to  have  been  so  determined  to  prove 


526  OLD  CROW 

her  a  tragic  figure  that  he  wouldn't  for  a  moment  have  the 
disaster  lightened  by  denying  her  that  last  misfortune  of 
having  done  it  herself.  Lots  of  these  things  I  haven't  told 
you,  they're  so  grim  and,  to  me  now,  so  wearing.  They've 
got  on  all  our  nerves  like  the  devil,  and  I  fancy  even  the 
Wake  Hill  natives  are  pretty  well  fed  up  with  'em.  At 
first  they  couldn't  get  enough.  When  Tenney  couldn't 
get  the  law  to  believe  in  him  so  far  as  to  indict  him,  the 
embattled  farmers  took  it  on  themselves  to  cross-examine 
him,  not  because  they  thought  for  a  minute  he  was  guilty, 
but  because  they  itched  to  hear  him  say  so :  drama,  don't 
you  see?  And  he  never  wavered  in  asserting  he  did  it: 
only  when  they  asked  him  how,  he  just  stared,  and  once 
told  a  particularly  smart  Alec,  he  guessed  it  was  a  man's 
own  business  how  he  killed  his  own  child.  And  he  stayed 
up  in  the  hut,  just  as  he  was  doing  when  you  went  away, 
and  night  after  night  I  had  to  stay  with  him.  Stuck  to 
me  like  a  burr  and  wore  me  threadbare  asking  if  he  was 
forgiven,  and  if  that  didn't  mean  he  was  whiter  than  snow. 
I  tell  you,  Dick,  it  was  all  so  involved  that  I  believe, 
although  he  used  the  set  phrases  about  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  he  really  believed  it  was  I  that  had  forgiven  him. 
He  used  to  ask  me  to  tell  God  to  do  it  for  my  sake ;  and 
I  remembered  Old  Crow  and  how  he  played  up  to  Billy 
Jones,  and,  if  you'll  believe  it,  I  did  ask  God  (though  not 
for  my  sake !),  and  horrible  as  it  is,  grotesque  as  it  is  (no, 
by  George,  it  isn't  grotesque  to  speak  to  a  man  in  the 
only  language  he  can  understand !  he  wanted  God  and 
he  couldn't  any  more  reach  Him !  he  had  to  climb  up  on 
another  man's  shoulders),  well,  I  told  him  it  was  all  right. 
He  was  forgiven.  Then  he  scared  me  blue  by  saying  he 
was  going  round  preaching  the  gospel — his  farm  is  sold, 
you  know,  stock  gone,  everything  wiped  out — and  I  told 
him  he'd  proved  too  dangerous  to  be  let  loose  on  the 
world  again.  But  he  had  me  there.  He  asked  if  he  was 


OLD  CROW  527 

forgiven,  why  wasn't  he  whiter  than  snow?  And  he  hung  to 
me  like  my  shadow,  and  asked  if  he  couldn't  keep  on 
living  in  the  hut,  till  he  felt  strong  enough  to  preach.  I 
told  him  he  could,  and  blest  if  I  didn't  see  him  and  me 
there  together,  world  without  end,  like  Old  Crow  and 
Billy  Jones,  for  nothing  was  ever  going  to  persuade  him 
to  let  go  of  me  again.  You'd  better  laugh,  Dick.  Nan 
and  I  had  to.  We  almost  cried.  It  is  funny.  I  bet 
Old  Crow  laughed.  But  Tenney  saved  me.  He  took  it 
into  his  own  hands.  And  what  do  you  think  did  it? 
We  went  down  to  the  house  one  morning  for  breakfast, 
and  Charlotte  came  out  to  meet  us,  tying  on  a  clean 
apron.  It  was  blue  with  white  spots  (I  forgot  you  don't 
see  any  significance  in  that,  but  Tenney  did)  and  he 
stopped  short  and  said :  'God  A'mighty !  I  was  in  hopes 
I  never  should  set  eyes  on  a  woman's  apron  again.' 

"I  went  up  to  have  a  bath  (my  staying  at  the  hut  was 
a  kind  of  emergency  business,  you  see)  and  he  disap 
peared,  and  Charlotte  and  Jerry  didn't  get  on  to  it  that 
he  was  really  gone,  and  later  on  he  was  seen  wading  into 
the  water  over  at  Mountain  Brook,  there  by  the  stepping 
stones.  The  Donnyhills  saw  him,  and  at  first  they  thought 
he  knew  what  he  was  about,  but  kept  on  watching  him. 
He  stooped  and  dipped  himself,  and  they  had  an  idea  it 
was  some  kind  of  a  self-conducted  baptism.  I  believe  it 
was.  Nan  often  has  to  remind  me  that  'he's  a  very  re 
ligious  man.'  But  they  watched,  and  presently  he  went 
under,  and  they  knew  then  he  was  making  way  with  him 
self,  and  the  Donnyhill  boy,  that  calm  young  giant,  fished 
him  out,  Tenney  fighting  him  furiously.  And  it  began  to 
look  to  me  as  if  he  ought  to  be  under  a  mild  supervision 
(it  wasn't  for  nothing  you  and  your  mother  let  fly  at  me 
with  your  psychiatry!  I  escaped  myself,  but  I  learned 
the  formula).  And  now  Tenney,  agreeing  to  it  like  a  lamb, 
is  at  that  little  sanitarium  Miss  Anne  Hamilton  started 


528  OLD  CROW 

'up  state,'  and  very  well  contented.  Nan  goes  to  see 
him,  and  so  do  I.  He  is  as  mild — you  can't  think !  Reads 
his  Bible  every  minute  of  the  day  when  he  isn't  doing  the 
work  they  give  him  or  converting  the  staff. 

"You'll  say  he's  insane.  I  don't  know  whether  he  is  or 
not.  I  don't  know  whether  they'll  say  so,  the  psycho 
pathic  experts  they've  let  loose  on  him.  I  simply  think 
he  found  the  difficulties  of  his  way  too  much  for  him  and 
he  revolted.  He  tried  to  right  the  balance  of  some  of  the 
most  mysteriously  devilish  inequalities  a  poorly  equipped 
chap  ever  found  himself  up  against  (strange  forces  that 
struck  at  him  in  the  dark)  and  being  ignorant  and  at  the 
same  time  moved  by  more  volts  of  energy  than  even  the 
experts  will  be  able  to  compute,  he  took  the  only  path  he 
saw,  slam-bang  into  the  thick  of  the  fight.  As  to  his 
spouting  his  Bible  like  a  geyser — well,  if  he  believes  in  it 
as  the  actual  word  of  God,  a  word  addressed  to  him,  why 
shouldn't  he  spout  it?  And  if  it  tells  him  that,  after  cer 
tain  formulae  of  repentance,  his  sins  shall  be  whiter  than 
snow,  why  shouldn't  he  believe  that  and  say  so  with  the 
simplicity  he  does?  All  the  same,  I  don't  think  he's  ex 
actly  the  person  to  wander  at  large,  and  I've  no  idea  what 
will  happen  when  his  good  conduct  and  general  mildness 
come  it  over  the  psychiatrists.  I  grin  over  it  sometimes, 
all  by  myself,  for  I  remember  Old  Crow  and  Billy  Jones 
and  I  wonder  if  the  logic  of  inherited  events  is  going  to 
herd  Tenney  and  me  together  into  the  hut  to  live  out  our 
destiny  together.  But  I  don't  think  so,  chiefly  because 
I  want  to  keep  my  finger  in  this  pie  of  the  French  Fund 
and  because  it  would  distress  Nan.  Distress  you,  too,  I 
guess  !  And  me ! 

"Now,  as  to  Nan.  You  gave  it  to  me  straight  from  the 
shoulder,  and  I've  got  to  give  you  one  back.  I  agree  with 


OLD  CROW  529 

you.  There's  no  hope  for  you.  She's  enormously  fond  of 
you,  but  it's  not  that  kind.  And  Nan's  old-fashioned 
enough  to  insist  on  that  or  nothing.  I  was  so  meddle 
some  as  to  bring  it  up  with  her  before  you  went  away. 
She  put  me  in  my  place,  told  me  practically  it  was  no 
body's  business  but  hers — and  yours — and  that  she'd 
already  talked  it  out  with  you  and  that  you're  a  'dear' 
and  you  'saw.'  So,  old  man,  as  you  say,  that's  that. 
Finis.  But  when,  after  I've  butted  in,  you  butt  in  and 
accuse  me  of  not  'seeing,'  so  far  as  I  myself  am  concerned, 
of  holding  her  off,  of  being  unfair  to  her,  all  the  rest  of 
it  (very  intemperate  letter,  you  must  own)  I've  got  to  give 
you  your  quietus  as  Nan  gave  me  mine.  First  place,  you 
say,  with  a  cheek  that  makes  my  backbone  crawl,  that 
Nan  'loves'  me.  (Do  you  really  want  to  be  as  Victorian 
as  that,  you  slang-slinging  young  modern?  But  I  know! 
You  think  I  mightn't  catch  on  to  your  shibboleths  and 
you  borrow  what  you  judge  to  be  mine,  give  me  the  choice 
of  weapons,  as  it  were.)  And  you're  a  trump,  Dick !  Don't 
think  I  don't  know  that,  and  if  I  poke  fun  at  you  it's  to 
keep  from  slopping  all  over  you  with  the  Victorian  lavish- 
ness  you'd  expect.  What  did  we  ever  fight  for  about  your 
youth  and  my  age?  Or  wasn't  it  about  that,  after  all? 
Was  it  really  about — Nan? 

"Well,  when  it  comes  to  'love,  I  do  love  Nan.  There 
you  have  it,  good  old-fashioned  direct  address.  She  is  as 
immediate  to  me  as  my  own  skin  and  veins.  She  always 
has  been.  She  began  to  grow  into  me  when  she  was  little, 
and  she  kept  on  growing.  There  are  fibers  and  rootlets  of 
Nan  all  through  me,  and  the  funny  part  of  it  is  I  love  to 
feel  them  there.  I  can't  remember  being  dominated  by 
anybody  without  resenting  it,  wanting  to  get  away — 
escape !  escape ! — but  I  never  for  an  instant  have  felt  that 


530  OLD  CROW 

about  Nan.  She's  the  better  part  of  me.  Good  Lord! 
she's  the  only  part  of  me  I  take  any  particular  pleasure 
in  or  that  I  can  conceive  of  as  existing  after  I  join  Old 
Crow.  (Not  that  I'm  allowed  to  take  much  pleasure  in 
her  now.  She  sees  me  when  I  call,  answers  when  I  con 
sult  her  about  the  Fund — and  she's  been  tremendously 
sympathetic  and  valuable  there — but  she  seems  to  feel  and, 
I've  no  doubt,  for  very  good  reasons,  that  we're  better 
apart.  She  has,  I  believe,  a  theory  about  it ;  but  we  needn't 
go  into  that.  And  I  don't  quarrel  with  it.) 

"The  queer  part  of  it  is  that  I  feel  Nan  herself  couldn't 
break  the  bond  between  us,  couldn't  if  she  tried.  It's  as 
deep  as  nature,  as  actual  as  Old  Crow.  I  can  give  you  a 
curious  proof  of  it.  I  might  be  almost  swamped  by  some 
body — yes,  I  mean  Tira.  I  might  as  well  say  so  as  hear 
you  saying  it  over  this  letter — somebody  that  is  beauty 
and  mystery  and  a  thousand  potencies  that  take  hold  on 
nature  itself.  But  that  doesn't  push  Nan  away  by  an 
inch.  If  I'm  swamped,  Nan's  swamped  with  me.  If  I 
mourn  the  beauty  and  the  piteousness  withdrawn,  Nan 
mourns,  too.  It's  Nan  and  I  against  the  world.  But  it 
isn't  Nan  and  I  with  the  world.  The  world  is  against 
us.  Do  you  see?  For  I'm  a  year  older  than  when  I  saw 
you  last.  And  though  many  of  the  things  you  felt  about 
the  years  weren't  true,  a  lot  of  'em  were,  and  they're  a 
little  truer  now.  And  one  of  them  is  that  I've  got  to  give 
Nan  a  fighting  chance  to  mate  with  youth  and — oh,  ex 
actly  what  you've  got.  I  wish  you  had  her — no,  I'm 
damned  if  I  do.  I  may  not  be  young  enough  for  jealousy, 
but  I  am  unregenerate  enough.  I  probably  mean  I  wish 
I  wished  it.  For  in  spite  of  my  revolt  against  the  earth, 
I'd  like  to  give  Nan  the  cup,  not  of  earth  sorceries  but 
earth  loveliness,  and  let  her  swig  it  to  the  bottom.  And 
then,  if  Old  Crow's  right  and  this  is  only  a  symbol  and 


OLD  CROW  531 

we've  got  to  live  by  symbols  till  we  get  the  real  thing, 
why,  then  I'm  sentimental  enough — Victorian !  yes,  say  it, 
and  be  hanged! — to  want  to  believe  Nan  and  I  shall  some 

time — some  time Anyhow,  I'm  not  going  to  ask  her 

to  spend  her  middle  years — just  think!  'figure  to  your 
self  !' — when  Nan's  forty,  what  will  your  revered  uncle  be  ? 

"Now  I've  told  you.  This  is  the  whole  story,  the  out 
line  of  it.  And  why  do  I  tell  you  instead  of  merely  invit 
ing  you  to  shut  up  as  Nan  did  me?  Because  if  you  retain 
in  your  dear  meddlesome  head  any  idea  that  Nan,  as  you 
say,  'loves'  me,  you're  to  remember  also  that  Nan  is  not 
in  any  sense  an  Ariadne  on  a  French  clock,  her  arm  over 
her  head,  deserted  and  forlorn.  You  are  to  remember  I 
adore  her  and,  if  I  thought  we  could  both  in  a  dozen  years 
or  so  perish  by  shipwreck  or  Tenney's  axe  (poor  Ten- 
ney !)  I  should  get  down  on  my  knees  to  her  and  beg  her 
(can't  you  hear  our  Nan  laugh?)  to  let  me  marry  her. 
(Probably  she  wouldn't,  old  man — marry  me,  I  mean. 
We're  seldom  as  clever  as  we  think,  even  you.  So  there's 
that.)  But,  in  spite  of  my  erratic  leanings  toward  Old 
Crow-ism  and  sundry  alarming  dissatisfactions  with  the 
universe,  I  still  retain  the  common  sense  to  see  Nan,  at 
forty,  worrying  over  my  advancing  arteriosclerosis  and 
the  general  damned  breaking  up  of  my  corporeal  frame. 
Not  on  your  life.  Now — shut  up  ! 

"Yes,  your  mother  continues  to  be  dissatisfied  over  your 
being  there.  She  thinks  it's  all  too  desultory,  but  is  con 
soled  at  your  being  mentioned  in  the  same  breath  with 
'two  such  distinguished  Frenchmen.'  I  tell  her  you  can't 
stop  for  a  degree,  and  maybe  if  you  follow  out  your  des 
tiny  you'll  get  one  anyway,  and  that,  if  you  still  want  to 
write  books,  this  will  give  you  something  to  write  about. 
But  she  doesn't  mind  so  much  since  she's  gone  into  poli 
tics,  hammer  and  tongs." 


532  OLD  CROW 

Now  this  letter  reached  Richard  Powell  in  the  dingy 
office  in  Paris,  where  he  happened  to  be  in  consultation 
with  his  two  advisers  who  were,  with  an  untiring  genius  of 
patience  and  foresight,  interpreting  to  him  daily  the  soul 
of  France.  He  went  over  the  first  part  of  the  letter  with 
them,  article  by  article,  point  by  point,  very  proud,  under 
his  composure,  of  their  uniform  agreement  with  the  admir 
able  Monsieur  Raven.  And  after  their  business  session 
was  concluded  and  the  two  Frenchmen  had  gone,  Dick 
addressed  hmself  to  the  last  part  of  the  letter,  given  in 
these  pages.  He  bent  himself  to  it  with  the  concentration 
that  turns  a  young  face,  even  though  but  for  the  moment, 
into  a  prophetic  hint  of  its  far-off  middle  age.  If  he  had 
kept  enough  of  his  shy  self-consciousness  to  glance  at 
himself  in  the  glass,  he  would  have  been  able  to  smile  at 
the  old  fear  of  what  the  years  might  do  to  him.  No  heavi 
ness  there,  such  as  he  remembered  in  his  father's  face : 
only  trouble,  pain,  and  their  mysteriously  refining  tracery. 
But  the  heaviness  was  in  his  heart.  He  had  to  under 
stand  the  letter  absolutely,  not  only  what  it  said  but  all 
it  implied.  If  it  actually  meant  what  he  believed  it  to 
mean  at  first  reading,  it  drew  a  heavy  line  across  his  own 
life.  Nan  had  drawn  the  line  before,  but  this  broadened 
it,  reenforced  it  with  a  band  of  black  absolutely  impossible 
to  cross.  And  it  did  mean  it,  and,  having  seen  that,  with 
out  a  possibility  of  doubt,  he  enclosed  the  letter  in  an 
envelope,  addressed  it  to  Nan,  and  leaned  back  in  his 
chair,  never,  he  believed,  to  think  it  over  again,  never  so 
long  as  he  and  Nan  lived.  There  was  no  residuum  of  sen 
timent  in  his  mind  as  there  was  in  Raven's  that,  after  Nan 
had  finished  with  this  life,  according  to  her  own  ideas, 
there  might  be  hope  of  another  Nan  bloomed  out  of  this 
one  somewhere  else  and  another  Dick,  risen  out  of  his 
ashes,  to  try  his  luck  again.  No,  the  line  across  the  page 


OLD  CROW  533 

was  the  line  across  their  lives,  and,  said  Dick:  "That's 
tli.it/'  But  he  caught  his  breath,  as  he  said  it,  and  was 
glad  there  was  no  one  by  to  hear.  Anybody  who  heard 
would  have  said  it  was  a  sob.  He  was,  he  concluded, 
rather  fagged  with  the  day.  These  confounded  French 
men,  with  their  wits  you  couldn't  keep  up  with,  they  took 
it  out  of  you. 

This  was  why  Raven,  in  Wake  Hill,  on  the  morning  the 
letter  came  to  Nan  in  Boston,  got  a  telegram  from  her, 
saying:  "Come  back."  He  had  gone  there  to  stay  over  a 
night,  after  a  few  hours'  visit  with  Tenney,  who  was 
eagerly  glad  to  see  him,  and  again  begging  to  be  confirmed 
in  his  condition  of  spiritual  whiteness.  Raven  had  just 
got  to  his  house  when  the  message  was  telephoned  up  from 
the  station,  and  its  urgency  made  him  horribly  anxious. 
He  had  been  especially  aware  of  Nan  all  day.  Little 
threads  of  feeling  between  them  had  been  thrilling  to  mes 
sages  he  couldn't  quite  get,  as  if  they  were  whispers  pur 
posely  mysterious,  to  scare  a  man.  He  was  on  edge  with 
them.  They  quickened  the  apprehension  the  message 
brought  upon  him  overwhelmingly.  She  never  would  have 
summoned  him  like  that  if  she  hadn't  needed  him,  not  a 
word  by  telephone,  but  his  actual  presence.  He  had  Jerry 
take  him  back  again  to  the  station,  and  in  the  late  after 
noon  he  walked  in  on  Nan  waiting  for  him  in  one  of  the 
rooms  Anne  Hamilton  had  kept  faithful  to  the  traditions 
of  bygone  Hamiltons,  but  that  now  knew  her  no  more.  It 
was  Nan  the  room  knew,  Nan  in  her  dull  blue  dress  against 
the  background  of  pink  roses  she  made  for  herself  and  the 
room,  Nan  white  with  the  pallor  of  extreme  emotion, 
bright  anxiety  in  her  eyes  and  a  tremor  about  her  mouth. 
She  went  to  him  at  once,  not  as  the  schoolgirl  had  run,  tin- 
last  time  she  offered  her  child  lips  to  him,  but  as  if  the 
moment  were  a  strange  moment,  a  dazzling  peak  of  a 


OLD  CHOW 

moment  to  be  approached — how  should  she  know  the  way 
to  her  heart's  desire? 

"What  is  it,  dear?"  asked  Raven,  not  putting  her  off,  as 
he  had  the  schoolgirl,  but  only  unspeakably  thankful  for 
the  bare  fact  of  having  found  her  safe.  "What's  hap 
pened  ?" 

"I  had  to  tell  you  straight  off,"  said  Nan,  "or  I  couldn't 
do  it  at  all.  He  sent  me  your  letter — Dick.  The  one 
about  me." 

Raven  was  conscious  of  thinking  clearly  of  two  things  at 
once.  He  was,  in  the  first  place,  aware  of  the  live  atoms 
which  were  the  letter,  arranging  themselves  in  his  mind, 
telling  him  what  they  had  told  Nan.  He  was  also  absently 
aware  that  Nan's  face  was  so  near  his  eyes  it  was  nothing 
but  a  blur  of  white,  and  that  when  he  bent  to  it,  the  white 
ran,  in  a  rush,  into  a  blur  of  pink. 

"So  Dick  sent  it  to  you,"  he  said.  "Well,  God  bless 
him  for  it.  Kiss  me,  my  Nan." 


YB   74235 


M175963 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


